


Five Bottles of Perfume

by trappedinathoughtbubble



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Brotp, Canon Compliant, Case Fic, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Epic Bromance, Episode: s03e01 The Empty Hearse, Episode: s03e02 The Sign of Three, F/M, Feels, Fluff, Gatiss already did that for me, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, I'm not torturing anyone in this fic, Implied Torture, Serial Murder, almost, and, and I forgot to metnion all the, and some, because it's canon, nothing gross, reunion talk, set between, some vague descriptions of dead people, sprinkled on top, with some
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-04
Updated: 2014-10-12
Packaged: 2018-02-19 19:49:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 27,402
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2400764
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trappedinathoughtbubble/pseuds/trappedinathoughtbubble
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock and John consult on a case which involves a serial killer perfuming crime scenes. Getting results is made difficult by things being still not completely sorted out after a certain high-functioning sociopath faked his death less than two years ago. But they'll get there. </p><p>* John pays his friend a not completely voluntary visit (Chapter 1)<br/>* Sherlock is brilliant with the dead, but maybe less brilliant with the living (Chapter 2)<br/>* Sherlock gets the milk, but not how John would have anticipated; a conversation Lestrade had, and one he didn't have (Chapter3)<br/>* The actual Reunion Talk because Sherlock would like to talk, and John would want to listen (Chapter 4)<br/>* Mary joins the case and things get interesting (Chapter 5)<br/>* A not quite break-in at Lestrade's place (Chapter 6)...<br/>* ... and an actual one somewhere else. A gun is fired, shock blankets are used and a case gets solved (Chapter 7)<br/>* The case gets wrapped up and the boys have a chat about French waiters, moustaches and Mary (Chapter 8)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

The rain was drumming against the window pane, and heavy droplets were moving across the glass, illuminated by the yellow street lights. Sherlock was on the sofa in the unlit sitting room, his eyes fixed on the laptop, watching the seemingly endless stream of cars a camera had captured on Belgrave Road almost a week ago. The soft *ping* of his phone interrupted the silence of the flat. But he ignored it. Like the seven previous ones. He knew it was Lestrade who was asking him to show up at a crime scene. Woman. 68. Possible serial murder. And several other details which Lestrade hoped would pique his interest, although he had told him he already had a case, and that he didn't like working on two cases simultaneously. But apparently, Lestrade wasn't going to take a 'no' for an answer.  
  
The only thing Lestrade's texts made him aware of was that he was running out of time. By now, the DI had phoned John, who, instead of spending the cold, late evening with Mary, would come to 221B; so sooner or later he'd end up in one of London's expensive suburbs, investigating Lestrade's crime scene. And there it was, the faint sound of somebody turning the key in the lock of the front door and John's familiar steps on the stairs.  
  
"Ten minutes." Sherlock said without his eyes leaving the screen, when he heard John open the door.  
  
"Hello to you too." John sighed upon entering the dark room. He turned on the lights and the sudden brightness made Sherlock squint his eyes. But apart from that John didn't get a reaction.  
  
"Ten minutes to what?"  
  
After a double shift at the clinic he just wasn't up to working out the message behind Sherlock's cryptic words. Actually, he had been almost too tired to leave Mary on the sofa, where they had fallen asleep, and to answer his phone. But in the end he hadn't been able to say no to Lestrade. And, if he was completely honest with himself, there had been the not so small mystery of what could have kept Sherlock possibly away from investigating a serial murder. Lestrade offered him the perfect homecoming gift and yet the world's only consulting detective didn't seem interested.  
  
"To a cab ride to wherever somebody stumbled across a body," came his answer while he was still focusing on the screen in front of him. "Lestrade obviously phoned you and now you are here to tell me to join him in looking at a dead woman in a smug bedroom. And although I still have more than six hours of CCTV footage to analyse, you won't stop distracting me before I agree to help with that murder victim. I'm just trying to save time by skipping an unnecessary conversation. Give me ten more minutes with this footage and we'll be off doing Lestrade a favour."  
  
"We? What makes you this sure that I'll come along?" John said with a small huff, but he didn't care to hide the smile in his voice.  
  
"That you came _all_ the way to Baker Street." Sherlock answered and looked up to see John's smirk before his friend disappeared in the kitchen.  
  
John knew without getting some caffeine he wouldn't be of much use that night, so he opened the fridge to see if there was any milk, and not to check if Sherlock had been eating properly, or so he told himself. After having inspected the shelves, he wasn't sure why he had thought to find milk in the first place. Still, the content of the fridge did not fail to take him by surprise. He hadn't expected real food instead of petri dishes, test tubes and severed body parts. The lack of 'experiments', or the absurdities Sherlock used to inflict upon organs and extremities in the name of science, told him Sherlock was indeed on a case which was why he hadn't been nagging Molly hard enough to get his usual supply. If she was still willing to participate in those strictly speaking illegal activities. Not as if Sherlock had ever worried about her losing her license, he thought, remembering the favour he must have asked her about two years ago. He closed the door with more force than would have been necessary, even though it couldn’t shut those memories away, and settled for coffee.  
  
A few minutes later, he re-entered the sitting room with two mugs of coffee in his hands and set Sherlock's - black, two sugar- down on the table next to a map in which Sherlock had put some pins covering an area between Baker Street and Lupus Street, as he could just about read through the multicoloured forest. He took a seat in his old chair and for a minute both of them were drinking coffee in silence. Or rather John drank coffee and watched Sherlock watching the footage and ignoring the mug next to him.  
  
Somehow the scenery felt comfortingly familiar: his chair, the aromatic scent of freshly brewed coffee filling the flat, and the promise of a new case in the air. He would have never admitted it, but he had missed these evenings.  
  
One part of his mind wanted to know why that footage could not wait. But time and experience had taught him he wouldn't have got a satisfying answer. However, as the caffeine started doing its job, he realised why Lupus Street rang a bell. Lupus Street was not far off St James the Less - the bonfire. And all of a sudden he didn't only know the date in the corner of the screen without having ever laid eyes on it, or why Sherlock had been trying to turn Lestrade's more than just promising case down, but also that Sherlock had spent every minute since he had got hold of the video material analysing it. Whenever that might have been.  
  
On the one hand, those almost two years, or one and a half as Sherlock kept pointing out, hadn't made him forget how frustrated Sherlock could be without a case. Nevertheless, he would have rather had Sherlock looking for a serial killer than for whoever had sorted out his Guy Fawkes Night plans. Instead of listening to Sherlock's story of how he had saved their lives two years ago, he had spent the night being saved once more.  
  
Obviously, they had aimed to hurt Sherlock, not him. He knew they could have killed him if they had wanted to. The reason he was still alive was because someone out there had found more pleasure in making Sherlock save him, than - what? having Sherlock lose his best friend?  
  
It had been a power game. A game somebody had set up. One John didn't want Sherlock to play. They knew he would be trying to catch them and John wasn't keen on repeating the swimming pool incident. Or Bart's and everything which had come in its wake. Stuff he mostly didn't know about, maybe never really will.  
  
Sherlock was right. Caring was not an advantage and John didn't want him to care about a case ever again. Yet, right now, that's what he did.  
  
He was tired of being Sherlock's leverage. He was tired of being drugged by people who didn't pay attention to the dosage. Not as if he had enjoyed being drugged by people who did, but Sherlock at least wasn't trying to kill him on purpose. But most importantly, he was tired of Sherlock playing against unknown powers in an attempt to keep them save. And yet he knew none of his possible and impossible arguments would have changed Sherlock's mind. Besides, he was certainly not having that conversation with his mind barely running on something most people wouldn't call coffee.  
  
Just then Sherlock paused the video to jot another license plate down.  
  
"Those ten minutes are up." John said and grabbed his coat, knowing Sherlock would follow right behind. It was mostly the caffeine keeping him awake and he wanted to get moving before it would lose its effect.


	2. Chapter 2

John wasn't sure why he had thought going to the crime scene would be a good idea. Well, he knew Sherlock's answer: because he was apparently an idiot.  
  
The moment Sherlock had lifted the police tape and they had passed the small gate of a neatly kept front garden, it had become hard to ignore the unfamiliar eyes which would never meet theirs, the way every conversation had ebbed away around them.  He hadn't expected an actual apology, but also not people giving them the silent treatment, as if they hadn't been helping the Yard fighting crime, but committing one with the Yard watching and making it all too obvious that their presence was an inconvenient necessity, one which was tolerated at best.  
  
If it hadn't been for Sherlock, he would have left.  
  
On the other hand, if it hadn't been for Sherlock, he wouldn't have been there in the first place.  
  
Tentatively, John threw his friend a glance wondering if this was the first time he was seeing the Yard through Sherlock's eyes. However, Sherlock didn't seem to be bothered by people's attitude, and took the chance to move across the entry hall, up the stairs of the fashionably furnished two-story house, without anyone asking them for explanations.  
  
Upstairs, they spotted Lestrade talking to a sergeant in front of a door.  
  
"We shouldn't be here." Sherlock greeted the DI, his tone indicating he wouldn't mind breaking some rules, and all of a sudden Lestrade's original conversation partner was completely occupied with the papers on his clipboard.  
  
"Well, according to the Yard you're still dead. They haven't updated the files yet. And there is no memo telling me I'm not allowed to consult the dead for their professional opinion." Lestrade said with a warm smile, which, given the brisk atmosphere, came close to a small revolution.  
  
Lestrade's and Sherlock's eyes locked for a moment, both of them knowing they were doing something wrong, but couldn't care less about the impending consequences. Sherlock for obvious reasons, Lestrade... John wasn't sure why he kept bending the rules and risking his job, but then, he didn't know much about Sherlock and Lestrade's common past.  
  
A few seconds later the DI handed John a blue protective suit and insisted on Sherlock at least covering his shoes.  
  
"It will make things a lot more easier if they won't find your prints on the carpet." Lestrade didn't rip the sentence completely off its almost threatening quality.  
  
"Shall we?" he asked once they were adequately crime-scene proof and opened the door to a stylish bedroom.  
  
Stepping inside they were overwhelmed by a sweet, flowery, only-Sherlock-knew-what-perfume. The fact that someone had fully opened a window wasn't weakening the ridiculously strong odour.  
  
Every room they had passed looked as if it had belonged into a furniture catalogue: it tried too hard to look fashionable, and too little to offer any kind of true comfort. And the bedroom wasn't an exception. Except for the lace tapestry and dark parquet floor, almost every bigger surface was pastel rose: the draperies hanging next to the lace curtains, the silk bedclothes and the pillows on it. Even the woman's nail polish was a glossy rosé. A crystal lustre, better fitting into a sitting room, was hanging over the bed, adding an eccentric touch to the room. There was a mirrored cupboard running over the left side and a dressing table, generously stocked with various, expensive looking beauty products as well as a jewel box made of dark wood and decorated with gold ornaments. And then, there was the woman herself, lying on her back on the right side of a king-sized bed: ash-blond dyed hair in a perm, rose-patterned silk nightgown, no jewellery. She had tried hard to look younger than her age.  
  
"Elizabeth Walters, 68, no obvious cause of death. Going by the other one, she died of an overdose of some sedative mixed with methanol. Her daughter found her less than two hours ago. Cater had almost the same case yesterday. A woman, 25, marketing assistant, found in a bedroom reeking of some aftershave. Injection mark in her right thigh. I don't need him," Lestrade pointed at Sherlock who by then had squat down next to the woman and was taking out a pocket magnifying glass, "to see a pattern here."  
  
"I assume the public doesn't know about the perfume. Or that he is injecting the stuff." Sherlock said.  
  
“No, it's not a copycat. Why do you think it's a he?”  
  
“Serial murder. I think we had this conversation not quite three years ago. The lady in pink.”  
  
“Right...”  
  
John hoped Lestrade had only looked at him because it had been their first case. And not because last time he had shot the serial killer before he could have confessed the murders. As Sherlock had explained to him over spring rolls and dim sum, Lestrade didn't like his serial killers dead.  
  
After what seemed to be a small eternity Sherlock got up.  
  
"Want to take a look?" he asked John, flashing him an innocent simile as he stepped aside. John threw him a glance, but in the end curiosity got the better of him.  
  
Several minutes later the DI's patience ran out. "And?" he tried to prompt the detective. But instead of rattling off his deductions, Sherlock left the woman's dressing table, after having examined the numerous bottles of perfume and skin creams arranged there, and went through the various items in the gigantic cupboard. At last, he let the mirrored front slide soundlessly back into place and crossed the room to the bed where he started staring intensely at the slightly crumpled bedclothes on the mattress next to her. He bent forward and, hovering only inches over the empty pillow, he took an audible breath.  
  
When Lestrade saw Sherlock's eyes light up he cleared his throat to make Sherlock aware of him still waiting for some explanations. He couldn't give Sherlock all day. There was only so much time he could keep Anderson away from a crime scene, and he didn't want the two of them to run into each other. The fact that Sherlock hadn't appreciated Anderson's little fan club hadn't helped to ease the somewhat tense relationship between the two of them.  
  
As if on cue, just that moment the forensic scientist walked in. The sight made Lestrade curse under his breath. "Okay. Enlighten us. What do you have?"  
  
"John?" Sherlock said to everyone's surprise. Including John's.  
  
"Erm... I'd say she died about twenty four hours ago... Judging by the smell and the somewhat greenish-blue colour of her skin." John started, wondering why Sherlock wanted him to state facts he had been certainly aware of without his help. "The muscles are stiff, the body is in full rigor mortis. An autopsy will be able to give you a more accurate time frame. Signs of asphyxiation. The injection mark on the right thigh corresponds to the suspected cause of death. The absence of a syringe may indicate that it wasn't a suicide."  
  
John couldn't help but be a bit proud of his analysis, not sure if it was the lack of sleep which was lowering his expectations.  
  
At least Sherlock continued without calling him an idiot. Small mercies.  
  
"Several small, slightly older injection marks on her face. Seems to be a recent botox treatment. She obviously cared about her appearance. But more interestingly she didn't spend her last night on her own. She had a visitor wearing an aftershave. Going by that pillow," he dramatically pointed into the general direction, "he's using one with a woody base note. I'd say the brand is Boss, but your lab will certainly be able to narrow that down. The white hair on the pillow next to her indicates that her suitor must be of a certain age."  
  
"Her suitor?" Lestrade asked sceptically.  
  
"Just look at her and use your brain. Generally speaking, there are three types of people who care this much about their looks. Singles, people in a not yet stable relationship and newly weds. Sure, there is her social status, high middle class, but she doesn't sustain the look of the faithful widow. She's keeping her and her husband's wedding rings in the only drawer of her old jewellery box which keeps getting stuck. No pictures reminding her of him on her bedside table. Nothing belonging to her late husband in the cupboard. Not to mention the creased and yet almost fresh bedsheets. On both mattresses. If it wasn't for the perfume one should be able to smell the softener. Clearly, there were two people in this bed recently."  
  
"Why did you invite him along, if the killer had left this much evidence?" Anderson complained. But before the DI could say anything, Sherlock beat him to it.  
  
"Because it's not very likely that he's your killer. You lot think you are dealing with serial murders. Why should he leave obvious evidence at only one crime scene? You're waiting for a mistake. And this doesn't look like it."  
  
"Maybe that's what he wants us to believe?" Anderson remarked, but Sherlock didn't dignify Anderson's comment with an answer.    
  
"Maybe she was his type? Well, you have to admit it would be the perfect cover-up."  
  
"This is not something written for those fancy novels you like to occupy yourself with." Sherlock said and shoved Anderson out of the door.  
  
"Sherlock, you cannot throw my forensic scientist off the crime scene."  
  
"Well, it's not my fault he's working with you."  
  
"That's not-" Lestrade started but interrupted himself, as he realised asking Sherlock to be civil to Anderson wouldn't be of any use. He took a deep breath and repeated Anderson's question instead. His job was to find answers, and if doing so required to feel like an idiot, and/or endure Sherlock's insults, then that was just part of his job.  
  
"How do you know he is not the killer?" he asked, faking patience.  
  
"Whoever killed her did not make use of Mrs Walters' habits. He could have put some toxin into her make-up. Thallium or something else which can be absorbed through the skin. Would have been more convenient and just as effective. But your killer chose to be present during the murder and yet he didn't kill her with a knife or a gun. Then there is that white hair. Statistically speaking, serial killers do not tend to be over a certain age. And they rarely change their MO. I have to admit leaving some evidence at just one crime scene would be brilliant, but it's too risky. He would have to make sure to leave the others spotless and that nothing about them as well as the victims can be connected to him. And he can't be sure of something like that. Otherwise, the Yard wouldn't be able to solve a single case. It's not impossible, but the least likely scenario. Odds are that hair does not belong to your killer."  
  
"Well then. What do you think did happen?" Lestrade asked briskly, unable to ignore the small insult.  
  
"He either left before your murderer got here, or you have a witness." And after an almost unnoticeable pause he added "Or you did have one. But you know my methods. I don't theorise before having seen all the data."  
  
With that he opened the door and let his eyes scan the room once more, told Anderson in the corridor he should not forget to bag the hair lying on the left pillow as well as the pillow case, went down the stairs and took the first door which led into the kitchen.  
  
"He cooked." Sherlock said hearing John's steps behind him on the floor tiles. "And he also did the washing up." John's glance fell on a pile of dishes on the draining board.  
  
"You sure? It's her place..."  
  
"This kitchen seems barely used. And have you seen her polished fingernails? She either re-did them after dinner, or she didn't do much last night in here. Besides, her hands didn't smell of onions or food." Sherlock said, pointing at the dustbin which was holding some plastic wrappings and vegetable peels.  
  
"Housekeeper? She could certainly afford one." John said, while Sherlock opened the fridge.  
  
"She's been dead for about a day. If she had a housekeeper, one who cooked, it wouldn't be her daughter who found her hours ago. There are no leftovers, and someone should have done some shopping today. The fridge looks rather empty."  
  
He let the door thunk shut and began studying the cupboards.  
  
A few minutes later he decided the kitchen had revealed its secrets, and took a look into the bathroom, the storage room and the sitting room, browsed through her mail and bookshelves, inspected the outside of the back door which lead into an orderly kept back garden and finished by going over Mrs Walters' collection of shoes. Before leaving the house, they stumbled into Lestrade in the hallway who was just done questioning the deceased woman's daughter.  
  
"Found anything?" the DI asked.  
  
"Plenty. First of all, she knew her visitor and trusted him. He was comfortable of using her kitchen, and she wasn't afraid of eating his risotto."  
  
"You think they were close because he cooked for her?" Lestrade asked wondering how on earth Sherlock could have possibly deduced that from the kitchen.  
  
"In her kitchen. A place he usually wouldn't cook at." Sherlock said in his do-I-really-need-to-spell-everything-out-to-you tone.  
  
"And you know he cooked because of-?"  
  
"Her nail polish. And I'm sure you'll be able to find his finger prints in the kitchen on the dishes and around the sink."  
  
"You know she trusted him from her nail polish?" Lestrade wasn't sure if Sherlock was being brilliant, or brilliantly ridiculous. Or both.  
  
"Come on, it's not that difficult. If she had done anything in the kitchen the polish would be in a worse condition. And yet the content of the dustbin in the kitchen says somebody did cook. Recently. There are still some drops on the drain board under the cutlery. And Mrs Walters certainly didn't do much cooking or the washing up. So he cooked. And this was clearly not the first time they met. He didn't invade her kitchen on their first date. Then there is their age. You told me she was 68, and the hair on the pillow is too short and too white to be hers. The most likely explanation is that they knew each other and that last night was not a-"  
  
"You're saying Mum had an affair? My mother?" the daughter, who had been silently listening to Sherlock's elaborations, cut him off. "I'll sue you for blemishing her reputation. I'll sue the police." she shouted and without a warning, slapped Sherlock. For a second, he just stood there, perplexed by her reaction. He looked the small thirty-something woman over and said in a cold, but surprisingly calm voice "I'm sorry if you don't like the results of my deductions. But the evidence does not care about your personal opinion."  
  
"What evidence?" she huffed, "There is nothing in the house which would imply she had an affair."  
  
"The bedroom and the kitchen disagree I'm afraid." He was done repeating himself. After a few seconds of tense silence she took a deep breath and left. They could hear her sobbing in the sitting room.  
  
"I'm sorry about that." Lestrade said.  
  
"Barely your fault. But now we know she has a motive. And before you ask, no, her little attack didn't impair my judgement."  
  
"She says she has an alibi."  
  
Although he was more than familiar with Sherlock being able to get at people's nerves, he was sure that if he could endure Sherlock's often insulting remarks, so could other people. Moreover, this time Sherlock hadn't provoked her.  
  
“And you still think it was not our serial murderer who left this much evidence?” Lestrade changed the topic.  
  
“Not likely. But if you want me in on this I need to take a look at the other crime scene."  
  
"Sorry, Sherlock. I don't think I-"  
  
"You are expecting me to solve a double homicide by giving me access to only one of them?" He wasn't sure if he was supposed to feel flattered. When it had become obvious Lestrade wasn't going to answer his question, Sherlock sighed: "I'll need the files." and set out for the door.  
  
"You'll have them tomorrow morning." Lestrade promised. It was going to be a long night and the grim prospect made him fight a yawn.

*********

To Sherlock's surprise it was a silent cab ride home. He had expected John to give him a lecture on how to treat the family members of murder victims, but he preferred the silence which allowed him to think about the case, and what had felt so off about Walters' bedroom.  
  
The reason John wasn't keen on starting a conversation was that by now the caffeine had worn off, leaving him exhausted, which would have made it difficult to focus on Sherlock's explanations at almost two in the morning. First, he was wondering if he should go home or stay at Baker Street for the night, but as he knew he wouldn't stay awake much longer, the decision was not too difficult to make. He sent a text to Mary so that she wouldn't worry about him and instead of talking about the case and Mrs Walters' daughter, they ended up looking out of the window watching London's rain-slicked streets pass by.  
  
Twenty minutes later the cab stopped. The very second they got out, Sherlock's phone started to ring. Before picking up he frowned at the device. His reaction allowed John to gather it was Lestrade, but he was too tired to actually care. He unlocked the front door, went up the stairs, got rid of his coat, kicked off his shoes and collapse on the sofa. It took him less than a minute to fall asleep.  
  
Outside, Sherlock, ignoring the faint drizzle and the cold night, was pacing up and down, not able to believe what he had to put up with.  
  
"Of course nobody knows about him."  
  
"Good." Lestrade said on the other end of the line, reminding himself that shouting at Sherlock wouldn't help him getting those answers any faster. "Any ideas how we could find her date?"  
  
"Do you have her mobile?"  
  
"If you are telling me to have a look at her last sent and received texts and calls, you're late. Already did that five minutes ago. Some texts and nine missed calls from her daughter."  
  
"Maybe she deleted them. Her provider will be able to give you a complete list. What about her contacts? Is anything odd there?"  
  
"Sherlock, what am I looking for?"  
  
"Anything unusual. Read them to her daughter. If there is one she doesn't recognise, try to phone it."  
  
"You _do_ realise it's after 2 am...? That's the best you can come up with?"  
  
"If you were hoping for something else, you are talking to the wrong Holmes brother."  
  
"Don't get cute with me," Lestrade told him, but before he could say something else, Sherlock heard the chiming of a phone, not Lestrade's, he knew the  DI's text alert, on the other end of the line.  
  
"I think your problem just got solved."  
  
"Yes, she got a text and it seems to be him. Says thanks for the nice evening." Lestrade confirmed, too happy to care about Sherlock's remarks.  
  
"Do you still require my assistance?" Sherlock asked humourlessly.  
  
"No, that was it. Thanks."  
  
"And don't forget to send me those files." Sherlock said and hung up.  
  
He took a minute to stand on the stone steps. His back turned to the closed door, he looked at the wet street, appreciating the comforting sensation of not being on the run any more.  
  
He felt like lighting a cigarette. But there wasn't one. Not in this coat.  
  
John had been right the other day. He did enjoy being Sherlock Holmes. Roaming London and solving the city's most interesting cases with his blogger having his back. It was days like this he had missed, which made it all the more obvious that most of it didn't feel like before. This was as close as he'd ever get to before and yet it wasn't the same. Those two years had changed him. He was afraid that 'Sherlock Holmes' had become another alias - his most favourite one - but one which wasn't more real than the others had been. That John, who had learnt to live without this, the adrenaline rushes measured in sleepless nights and fantastic puzzles, would give up some of his boring but safe suburban life and would want to be part of - whatever they had before, only to notice that the innocent consulting detective he had been friends with was gone. That he had jumped off that building, making room for someone who had seen the dark side of the world and wasn't able to completely forget about it again.  
  
Slowly, he turned round and opened the door.  
  
Moriarty's silent revenge, he thought and strolled up the stairs.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock gets the milk, but not how John would have anticipated and a conversation Lestrade had, and one he didn't have.

John shuffled into the kitchen, fighting for every step on the way as all his body wanted was some more rest. Neither the additional exercise of having been to his room to get some fresh clothes he had left at Baker Street, nor the almost cold shower had been of much use; he simply wasn't used to running on less than four hours of sleep any more. It had been a small miracle that he hadn't cut himself shaving while he had tried not to fall asleep in front of the mirror.  
  
He found Sherlock sitting at the kitchen table in front of his laptop, the map from the sitting room lying next to an empty mug, and John couldn't remember for his life if he had already been there when he had barely found his way to the bathroom less than ten minutes ago.  
  
"Morning," John yawned.  
  
"Morning." Sherlock said absorbed in his work.  
  
Actually, John hadn't expected a response, or Sherlock wearing pyjamas and a dressing gown instead of yesterday's suit which told him that sometime during the night he too had gone to bed and not just passed out over his notes. Or breakfast waiting for him on the counter: two slices of almost cold toast, his mug with tea -the teabag in, apparently one had to be a criminal mastermind to get a decent cup at 221B- standing next to butter and an open jar of strawberry jam. Well, this kitchen had seen him having worse breakfasts than that.  
  
However, as he got rid of the teabag and prepared to take a heroic sip of lukewarm, stale tea, Sherlock said "There is also milk in the fridge,"  with his eyes on the screen. It was things like this which didn't fail to give John the impression that Sherlock had some sort of telepathic skills. But it wasn't until he opened the fridge and spotted an almost full bottle of semi skimmed milk in the door that the content of Sherlock's sentence sunk in.  
  
"Have you been out to buy milk?" John asked in utter disbelieve. Someone was trying hard to get back into his good books. And he had to admit it worked.

Still a bit awestruck, he added a dash of it and went about re-toasting the bread.  
  
"If it had been me it would be whole and not semi skimmed." Sherlock answered, his attention not leaving the footage for as much as a second.  
  
"Whole?" He found it hard to picture Sherlock in the dairy section of a supermarket. Or why, after having shared a flat with him for more than- had it really only been less than two years?- this was news to him.  
  
"It tastes better."  
  
"And you care about taste?"  
  
"You do..." Sherlock flashed him a glance.  
  
"So where did it come from?" John said when he noticed Sherlock wasn't going to elaborate.  
  
"Mrs Hudson."  
  
"You woke her up?"  
  
"Of course not. Picked her locks."

As if breaking and entering had been naturally the most logical option. However, the most worrying thing was that in an odd way it did make perfect sense to him.  Smiling about the things which passed as perfectly normal behaviour at 221B, John said 'thanks', but it became drowned out by Sherlock's phone which chose that very second to ring.  
  
Reading the name on the display, Sherlock reluctantly paused the video and answered his mobile, putting it on speaker and started rearranging some of the pins in the map.  
  
"Morning Sherlock. I'm on my way to Mr Cooper, the guy who sent that text, and I'd like to know if there are any peculiar questions you want me to ask him."  
  
"And I can't come along and ask them myself?" On the other hand,  he wasn't really keen on listening to an elderly man's ramblings about his dead love.  
  
"I'd love to, but I'll meet Carter there, and I don't want him to know you're helping with this one... Your questions?"  
  
"Pay attention to his wife- if he has one- when you are breaking the news. If she found out about her husband having an affair, she may have a motive. And him being married would give them an actual reason to keep the affair secret."  
  
"Why would she have killed her and not her husband instead?"  
  
"To hurt him."  
  
"What about the other victim?"  
  
"I'm not suggesting that either Mr or Mrs Cooper killed anyone. I'm just asking you to take a look at her. Once you have eliminated the impossible-"  
  
"I get it. Anything else?"  
  
"Ask him where he spent the last three nights, why he cooked and why he sent that text at such an ungodly hour."  
  
"Okay." Lestrade waited for some other, more unusual instructions, but Sherlock remained silent. "When I'm finished here, I'll come around to give you the files."  
  
"I'll be here."  
  
"Good, see you then." Lestrade said and hung up.  
  
For a moment the only sound in the room was the ticking of the clock and the faint buzzing of the laptop.

"Do you think the Chief is giving him a hard time again?" John asked Sherlock who was still staring at the map.  
  
"Sounds like it. But he'll find a way. He always does."  
  
"Well, then. Thanks for the breakfast. I got to dash." John swallowed the last bite of toast, and as after a few seconds Sherlock's mind was still fully occupied with the pins covering London's streets, John took his coat and closed the door of the flat behind him.  
  
The sound snapped Sherlock back to reality.  
  
"You're welcome." he murmured, absent-mindedly, to an empty flat.

**********

It was a sunny but cold late afternoon in the park; a chilly breeze was pushing clouds across a steel-blue sky. The faint smell of autumn was lingering in the air and Lestrade would have wrapped his coat more tightly around himself, if he hadn't been carrying two cups of takeaway coffee and a bag with glazed doughnuts.  
  
He arrived at the pond and found Sherlock still sitting on the bench just the way he had left him five minutes ago. He sat down next to him putting the bag between them and handed him one of the two plastic cups. For a few minutes, they sat there watching the swans swimming in the uninviting cold looking water. They were enjoying one of the last sunny afternoons of the year, before the fog would set it. Well, the swans and Lestrade were. Sherlock was thinking, and only he knew about what.  
  
After he had shown up at 221B 'to give Sherlock the files' he had talked him into accompanying him to some follow-up questionings. It had been the next best thing he had been able to offer him instead of the actual crime scene. He had known Sherlock wasn't going to be happy about the alternative, so he had made sure not to give Sherlock any excuses to get around it. No police car, no Anderson, no drama. Obviously, he hadn't been able to keep the last one; they were investigating murders after all. Actually, the first one, Mr and Mrs Fouler, the first victim's parents, had been pretty nerve-racking, with all that sobbing and handkerchief clutching. Even for Lestrade's standards. At least, Sherlock hadn't got slapped.  
  
When had that become an indicator for a successful questioning again?  
  
The interviews at Fouler's workplace had been better. Or as good as boring, unrevealing office gossip could be. The only highlight had been watching Sherlock manipulating the secretary of Fouler's boss to get some information. He hadn't known Sherlock could flirt, not like that. Unfortunately, the only thing they had learnt from her, apart from some highly detailed stories regarding her boss' private life, was that Fouler hadn't had an affair with him.  
  
"So what do you think about the case?" Lestrade finally asked, breaking the silence which had built up between them.  
  
"We aren't here to talk about the case." Sherlock said. "You expect me to tell you people's life stories by taking a look at their hands At the same time you think I wouldn't notice what you're doing. Coffee and doughnuts."  
  
For a second Lestrade didn't know if he had wanted Sherlock to figure that one out. But how could he have expected anything else?  
  
Back at the very beginning, before he had started consulting the posh git on a regular basis, every time he had occasionally asked Sherlock for some information, he had finished their meetings with hot coffee and doughnuts. And with telling him that he wouldn't let him in on any other cases if he wouldn't become clean. And then it had evolved into some sort of tradition. In the long run, he wouldn't have been able to work with a junkie. And for the coffee and doughnuts... Those days he had been pretty sure it had been the only warm thing Sherlock had eaten all day. He would have never accepted a 'proper' meal. Lestrade had tried. In short, for a long time coffee and doughnuts had been Lestrade's version of 'we need to talk'. And they did need to talk. Now. But he had forgotten how to start these kind of conversations.  
  
"The Chief Superintendent is not fond of you contacting me whenever you get stuck with a case." Sherlock said, stressing the title of Lestrade's superior, which added a slightly annoying quality to it.  
  
"I guess you two didn't have a chat..." Lestrade gave him a half-smile.  
  
"Wasn't a big leap. Everything about yesterday. Your phone call this morning. And the papers in the back of the last file." He wasn't going to tell him that even John had been able to piece things together, without the documents.  
  
"When he heard about you showing up at the crime scene he-"  
  
"Anderson rattled me out."  
  
"Yeah... He couldn't resist telling a few people that you got slapped by Mrs Hart. And the Chief got wind of it. Well, I have been expecting him to have a word with me about yesterday, but- "  
  
"That's barely a reason to-"  
  
"Sherlock, I had to promise him this morning that I'll either lose my job or I won't let you in on this or any other cases in the future. Or you sign those damn papers and then, after waiting for several weeks for his highness to give his blessings, you can officially help me catching London's more creative criminals."  
  
"And the obvious solution to that problem is to turn up on my doorstep and drag me to some questionings?" Sherlock asked miserably failing at suppressing a smirk.  
  
"Well, I wasn't planning to bump into Anderson." Lestrade said smiling back at him.  
  
For half a minute, they were sitting there, the coffee warming their hands.  
  
"Have you read the contract?" Lestrade asked.  
  
"Yes. But we both know I wont pass the security checks."  
  
 _So why try?_ It hung there in the air. Just like the idea of Mycroft performing one of his not-so-small miracles, even though this was one of those many things with which Sherlock didn't want his brother to interfere.  
  
"You know," Sherlock added after a long pause, "one of the reasons I've been willing to work with you is your attitude towards paperwork. Or rather the lack of it."  
  
"And here I've been thinking it's because I'm the Yard's most capable detective..." Lestrade remarked with fake frustration.  
  
That was actually not far off the truth, but he wasn't going to tell Lestrade that. Instead, he watched as the DI opened the bag, grabbed one of the doughnuts, and took a bite.  
  
"They are delicious." he murmured and Sherlock, tentatively, followed his example.  
  
Several minutes passed before Sherlock picked up the conversation again: "I won't work with Carter. Or Dimmock. Or anybody else. And you won't make me take cases I don't want to."  
  
"I never do that."  
  
"Which is why I'm here in St James Park instead of my flat."  
  
"Don't tell me this case is not right up your street." Lestrade noticed his patience was wearing thin. "Serial murder with an odd element to the crime scene. It's a picture book example of what you like."  
  
All of a sudden Sherlock's eyes lit up.  
  
"Sorry, that's not what I-" Lestrade tried to back-pedal but Sherlock cut him off.  
  
"No. Don't say that. What if you're right? What if he wants to catch my attention?"  
  
"Our serial killer is asking you to catch him..." he sighed.  
  
"Don't be ridiculous. But what if he wants me to work on this case?"  
  
"Why should he do that?" Lestrade genuinely failed to see why anybody in their right mind would do such a thing. Or suggest it.  
  
"It's not the first time someone would make that sort of request."  
  
Which was just proving his point, Lestrade thought. It was high time for Sherlock to work on a 'normal' case, one which did not involve psychopathic masterminds. But he couldn't say that to him.

"So, you'll sign the papers?" he asked, mostly to speak about something else.  
  
"I'm entertaining the possibility. If they agree to my conditions there's not much that would change."  
  
"Apart from a pay cheque and you enduring to be mentioned in my final reports."  
  
"I don't get a choice, do I?"  
  
"You'll also have to read and sign them. And I certainly won't rewrite them only because you think I made a mistake."  
  
"We'll see..." Sherlock replied with a wry smile and got up.  
  
"Where are you going?"  
  
"I've still got that other case."  
  
"And it is more interesting than a double-homicide, isn't it?" Lestrade tried to tease him, but as Sherlock didn't fall for the bait he remembered that the consulting detective could be rather tight lipped about his private cases. So instead of digging deeper into the matter he decided to ignore Sherlock's secrets.  
  
"And stay away from the case. That includes the victims' friends and relatives. And our suspects."  
  
"You don't have any suspects."  
  
"And any possible evidence." Lestrade ignored Sherlock's remark. Mostly, because it was true.  
  
"Against popular believe, I don't want you to lose your job."  
  
"Who'd give you this interesting mysteries?" Lestrade joked, but it didn't really feel like it. "Good. I'll drop by to collect those papers."  
  
"If any other bodies should turn up, give me a call."  
  
"You think there will be more?"  
  
"It wouldn't take me by surprise." Sherlock answered and left.  
  
For a few minutes Lestrade sat there, looking after him, thinking about all those other questions he had wanted to ask Sherlock, but hadn't dared to. About those two years. About Bart's. About Moriarty. He knew he was dead. He knew Sherlock had spent those years 'dismantling' Moriarty's network, whatever that was supposed to mean. But he had loved to know what had happened on the roof of Bart's that day. Why he had jumped. Why it hadn't been about the papers. That was the only thing he had known for sure and knowing why he hadn't done it hadn’t made things easier for him.  
  
Would he have been able to prevent it?  
  
He had never envied Sherlock for his gift, because unlike many people he had seen its downsides. But during the first days, weeks and months after the meltdown, there had been two words haunting him.  
  
What if?  
  
What if he could have proven that Sherlock was innocent?  
  
What if they had had another day?  
  
What if Sherlock hadn't made things only more complicated by being stupid and jumping off a roof?  
  
Because among the many questions he had wanted to ask, there was only one he actually cared about, one thing he selfishly wanted to hear. One thought the silence of being temporarily suspended and newly divorced had kept repeating and torturing his conscience. He needed Sherlock to tell him that it hadn't been his fault. That he hadn't betrayed their friendship, or whatever they were having. That he hadn't let him down in spite of the case, the Yard and Sherlock being his responsibility.

 At times, he had thought he would have accepted Sherlock's abilities. He would have put up with cases not allowing him to fall asleep at night, with going on till exhaustion would take over. With responding to nicknames like 'freak' and shrugging the insults off. With being able to read the hostile feelings of others, knowing people's petty secrets, seeing their lies, mistakes and their ugly sides they were so desperate to hide. He'd have put up with it if it had allowed him to change that one morning, if back then it had allowed him to pull some evidence out of thin air proving that Sherlock was not a fraud. The way Sherlock would have done.  
  
He wanted to get rid of the feeling of guilt which had been following him around ever since. Preparing for his hearing, going through all their old cases which only had shown him how brilliantly Sherlock had managed to turn seemingly hopeless cases around, hadn't helped to silence the accusing voices in his mind. In the end he didn't lose his job, probably also due to Mycroft's doing. The people in charge had decided he had been one of Sherlock's victims, someone who had fallen for his tricks. And he had needed to gather each ounce of self-control, telling himself it wouldn't make a change, it wouldn't bring back Sherlock from the dead, to just sit there and accept all the lies which passed as the truth. With things cleared up and Sherlock's reputation restored, that was why he was risking his job once more; he wanted Sherlock and the world to know that he still trusted him unconditionally. Yesterday was his attempt of an apology. Not only to Sherlock, but also to himself.  
  
When he had turned up in the garage Lestrade had told him he'd be there if he wanted to talk. And he had meant it. However, he knew him and wasn't surprised that he hadn't made use of the offer. Then again, remembering how Sherlock hadn't done as much as flinch when he had got slapped last night, made him pretty sure he didn't want to hear most of what had happened during those two years. Ever since his return Sherlock had acted as if he had never been away, and even though he knew it was a mere illusion, Lestrade, against his better judgement, was willing to play along. He only couldn't decide if accepting Sherlock's silence made him a self-centred egoist, or the opposite.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Case files are read. And the actual reunion talk. Because Sherlock would like to talk, and John would want to listen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote most of this before _'Empty Hearse'_ aired. Obviously, I had to polish things up a bit (a lot), but it's still not 100% canon compliant because I didn't want to change some parts. For reasons.

John opened the door to 221B the same evening and found the flat cold and empty. No violin concertos, no experiments, no Sherlock. The laptop and the map were still in the kitchen on the table, two mugs and jam-stained plates next to it. Somehow, the place felt eerily calm, without Sherlock whirling through it. It reminded him of -  but he pushed the thought aside before it could fully materialise.  
  
He decided to wait for him to come home. As Mary was out with Janine there was no point in leaving this early anyway. So he turned up the heating and made tea in order to chase the cold away and occupied his chair in the sitting room with a cup in his hands and ignored the three case files lying on the end table.  
  
There was something which kept him from just opening them. As much as the vague scent of disinfectant and various chemicals made him feel at home, the rational part of his mind told him it wasn't true. Because it didn't only remind him of home, but also of fairytales which didn't come with a happy ending, of the law forcing people to do what's just according to a book, instead of what's right, of nights during which he had dreamed about far too high buildings, far too short phone calls, and blood on the pavement. This flat was a collection of all the reasons why his life would never be the same again, why he didn't _want_ his life to be the same again. And even though he had forgiven Sherlock- of course he had- he was happy that after a night spent chasing criminals in Sherlock's wake he could go home to another place, another flat which smelled too much of vanilla candles and too little of acetone, but he wouldn't have had it any other way. He loved Mary and she allowed him to keep both. She hadn't made him choose between her and Sherlock for reasons John couldn't quite understand, and he loved her for it more than he'd have thought should have been possible.  
  
So he told himself one more time that sitting in his chair reading case files wouldn't make those two years magically disappear and opened the first one - _only_ because he had time to kill.  
  
Victoria Fouler. 25. Marketing assistant. Died between three and five on Tuesday morning. An overdose of barbiturate mixed with methanol injected into her left thigh. She had been found by her cleaner and Sherlock had scribed 'shared flat with boyfriend, rich parents' next to it as if he had known that reading those words would make that question pop up in John's mind. To be fair, it hadn't. Not until he head read Sherlock's answer.  
  
He skimmed through the cleaner's uninteresting report, and someone (Sherlock) had highlighted her saying that she had called the police because people weren't supposed to drop dead at 25.  
  
He turned the page and read the accounts of Fouler's parents, as well as some of her colleagues of which all had said more or less the same: she had been an eager young thing. Nice, but not interesting nor influential enough to bother with.  
  
The following page was a scrap, literally, a scrap of paper which was covered with Sherlock's just about readable handwriting. Some notes on the secretary of Fouler’s boss. And her boss’ life.  
  
The final page was the questioning of Fouler's boyfriend. The name was Danny Casile. He and his friends had been drinking too much that evening and he had spent the night in police custody for offending and punching a police officer on his way home. The next morning he hadn't had the time to go home before work. And Sherlock had highlighted Danny saying that it was his aftershave (Sherlock had written 'cheap, birthday gift from his girlfriend') which the killer had used to scent the bedroom with. The lack of Sherlock's additional notes told him he hadn't talked to Danny. Originally, it had been Carter's case, who of late didn't approve of Lestrade inviting some 'amateurs' to crime scenes. In other words, speaking to Danny Casile would be difficult.  
  
The next one was familiar to him. Elizabeth Walters, 68, retired MP, got killed on Wednesday morning. Estimated time of death between two and four AM. 'Cooper didn't leave till 1AM' he read in Sherlock's scribble. The words barbiturate, methanol and 'Dolce' by 'Dolce  & Gabana' were given a neon-yellow background. There was a short list of the evidence left in the bedroom and the kitchen. Cooper's DNA and fingerprints. That made John realise that the other crime scene was apparently 'spotless' and all of a sudden he remembered what Sherlock had said about spotless crime scenes the previous evening. Night. As much as he didn't want Anderson to be right, John knew that Sherlock was entertaining that option.  
  
There was just one transcript in the file, Sarah Hart; Walter's married daughter. She was a stockbroker and had spent the night working at the office. Some business with Tokyo. And according to CCTV and her key card she had entered the office before eleven PM and hadn't left till seven in the morning. Somebody had stapled a list of phone numbers to the transcript. Apparently, they belonged to some of her colleagues to confirm her alibi.  
  
But before he could start reading the next page, on which he could barely make out the word 'Coopers' in Sherlock's scratchy writing he heard Sherlock on the stairs.  
  
"You've found the files," he said entering the sitting room. He left his coat and suit jacket on the client's chair, flung himself on the sofa and started deducing the ceiling.  
  
"I worked my way up to the Coopers." John's eyes moved from Sherlock lying on the sofa back to the open file in his hands.  
  
"According to Lestrade, Cooper was genuinely shattered by the news, in spite of his wife sitting next to him, which tells me he hadn't had a plan to deal with the situation. So he's either innocent or incredibly stupid. If he had killed her he would have known that sooner or later somebody was bound to find her, and that the evidence at the crime scene was pointing towards him. And yet he showed he had cared about her and didn't do anything to please his wife."

"What if he's being deliberately stupid? You always want things to be clever... What if this time they are not?"

Sherlock frowned and looked at him for a moment, about to protest, but in the end he changed his mind: "On top of that, the security camera at the petrol station two streets from Walters' house, where he had parked his car, shows him leaving before one AM."  
  
"Why didn't he leave the car in front of the house?"  
  
"Neighbours. They wanted to keep the affair secret."  
  
"He could have come back taking another route."  
  
"I know..."  
  
"What about his wife?" John asked, remembering Sherlock and Lestrade's conversation that morning.  
  
"She said she went to bed, shortly after her husband left to take a look at his brother's faulty TV set, or that's what he had told her. And she woke up when he came home at quarter past one."  
  
"They are giving each other an alibi..."  
  
"But if it had been them, they would have come up with something better than this, wouldn't they?"  
  
"Don't overestimate the criminal world..."  
  
"Besides, they say they visited some relatives of Mrs Cooper in Scotland and didn't return till Tuesday afternoon. And there doesn't seem to be a connection to the other victim."  
  
"They think he couldn't have killed Fouler... And you think they are right?"  
  
"I don't know. I can't double check the evidence I get. I'm not supposed to know about the case in the first place." Sherlock said frustratedly.  
  
John turned the page, and- hold his breath for a moment upon seeing some official looking papers with NSY's emblem and Lestrade's signature. He didn't need to read them to know what they were.  
  
"What?" Sherlock asked, who, although his eyes were set on the ceiling, had noticed something had changed. But he didn't need to wait for John's explanation.  
  
"There are more important matters to talk about with a serial killer on the loose."  
  
"Sure." John murmured knowing that no matter what he would have said it wouldn't have encouraged Sherlock to tell him the story of why he hadn't signed those papers several years ago, which would have saved Lestrade a lot of trouble after... Bart's. And just as he had expected, Sherlock remained silent. John imagined all the questions to which he would have got the same response.  
  
Having arrived at the last page of the file, he slowly closed it and picked up the next one. It only contained one sheet of paper: Stephen Wilkers. 42. Architect. Killed Thursday morning. When he hadn't given his wife a lift home from the hospital she had taken a cab and had found him in their bedroom which had smelled as if somebody had broken her bottle of Channel No. 5.  
  
"That's all I have on it." Sherlock said upon hearing the rustling of the paper, sounding even more annoyed than before.  
  
"You haven't been to the crime scene?"  
  
"No."  
  
The silence that followed spoke volumes to John. In a way it was more unnerving than Sherlock's complaints about Scotland Yard making his life difficult would have been. It told him Sherlock had given up on pestering Lestrade to make something about the situation. He couldn't remember if he had ever seen him this... defeated. Even when they had been facing Moriarty at the pool, he had come up with a plan. It would have resulted in their deaths, mind you, but it had been a plan nonetheless. Even at Kitty's flat Sherlock had seemed to be busy setting things right. Which was part of the reason why it had been so hard to accept his suicide. Back then he had known what to do. But this was different. John could see how he wasn't trying to come up with a solution, how he was listlessly staring into empty space.  
  
John's gaze fell on his own, by then again empty cup next to the files.  
  
"Do you want some tea?"  
  
"I hope you know a cup of tea doesn't make things magically better." Sherlock attempted to put on a mocking voice and didn't quite succeed. But as he hadn't said 'no', John collected his own mug and went to the kitchen. He switched the electric kettle on and turned around to get Sherlock's mug from the kitchen table and almost bumped into his friend who, all of a sudden was leaning behind him against the counter.  
  
"Well then. What is the connection between these people, apart from the drug cocktail and the perfume?" John asked.  
  
"It seems the killer knows his victims would spend the night on their own, but I have yet to figure out how."  
  
"All of them seem to be asleep while he's injecting the drug."  
  
"No signs of a fight," Sherlock nodded, "or forced entry."  
  
"And they are well off. What about some common acquaintances? If Casile's parents are rich and she was a former MP..."  
  
"The thought has also occurred to Lestrade..." Sherlock said sounding lost in thoughts.  
  
"Isn't it odd that he's using a lethal dose of barbiturate _and_ methanol?" John wondered. "Why mix them?"  
  
"Maybe he isn't used to them and wants to make sure his victims die. Could be also part of his signature... But I don't understand why Hart's first reaction was to phone the police."  
  
"She was her mum..." John suggested, and took a box of teabags out of the cupboard.  
  
"Yes, but why was foul play her first thought when at the same time she seemed pretty sure her mum hadn't spent her last night with someone? No evidence of a break-in, nothing which would have indicated that she got killed. Walters didn't look like a typical murder victim."  
  
"She worked in politics. Maybe her daughter grew up thinking that anything bad happening to them was because of someone trying to get at her mum. Maybe she's right and the murders are politically motivated."  
  
"Why would anyone kill a marketing assistant, a former MP and an architect for political reasons? And why now? Walters retired ages ago."  
  
The kettle clicked and the orange light turned off, drawing attention to how dimly lit the kitchen really was. John poured some of the boiling water into his and Sherlock's mugs in which he had put two fresh teabags and watched them floating to the top.  
  
"That's all you have?"  
  
"That's all they are giving me..."  
  
For several seconds, none of them said a word.  
  
"I had a chat with Hart's husband and met Fouler's best friend by accident." Sherlock filled the silence. "No. Really."  
  
If John hadn't known him, maybe he would have fallen for the innocent look in Sherlock's eyes.  
  
"And she just happened to tell a stranger about her loss." John joked.  
  
"Something like that would be on her mind, and I simply took advantage of that."  
  
He shot him a look but decided he didn't actually care about his interrogation techniques and let Sherlock off the hook.  
  
"Learnt anything interesting?"  
  
"She envied Fouler for her job and her boyfriend. No alibi. Well, she might have used other words. She'd be interesting if Fouler was the only victim."

"Not much of a real friend..."  
  
John removed the teabags and took the pint of semi-skimmed milk out of the fridge putting it and sugar on the table. They sat down facing each other, with two mugs of tea in front of them.  
  
"And the husband?"  
  
"Said Walters and her daughter have never got along, making each others' lives difficult. She didn't approve of her daughter not going into politics, and of him in general. Hart thought her mum did her best trying to ruin her reputation by not having a nice, quiet life."  
  
"Why would he possibly tell you that? You said you were from the police?"  
  
"Couldn't. Because of Lestrade. I met him in a supermarket. Good, if you insist, I tracked him down and followed him there. Told him my mum and Walters' went together to university. I tried to express my condolences and he ended up telling me that his wife and his mother in law had been fighting a lot."  
  
"But Walters' couldn't have done it..."  
  
"She has an alibi. Couldn't ask _him_ for one. For obvious reasons..."  
  
"Do you think he has a motive?"  
  
"Because she didn't like him? It's possible, but then why would he tell me the truth?"  
  
"You were someone he didn't think he'd see ever again. So, why not?"  
  
"Why would he use the perfume? Or kill the others? They just don't understand I need more data..."  
  
It was not difficult to see how right now Sherlock would have loved to be behind some police tape, snooping around wherever Anderson was tempering with some evidence. Why hadn't Sherlock had that attitude twenty-four hours ago?  
  
"What about the other case? The one with the footage?" He managed to keep his voice causal, but the grip on his mug and the look in his eyes made it clear he knew what it was all about.  
  
"There aren't any leads left to follow. Spoke to the guy who had lent the van they used."  
  
"You found it?" John didn't even try to hide his surprise. "How?"  
  
"The CCTV footage."  
  
"But how? It's not as if any of London's cameras had captured how they put me into the boot of a car."  
  
"Because they didn’t put you into the boot of a car. If you are abducting someone from a busy street in broad daylight you're running the risk of getting noticed. And yet, they didn't close off Baker Street which tells me they knew they'd be fast." he rattled off as if he was talking about any other case.  
  
For a moment John wondered how much of this was show. How much of it wasn't. And that he should be actually happy that Sherlock was not making a fuss about it. Just as he had hoped less than twenty-four hours ago.  
  
"They could have chosen another time and another location to get hold of you, but they didn't. My first thought was they had used a delivery van. They have wide doors and can stop anywhere without people really noticing them. They are big enough to block people's view of what is happening behind them, but most importantly, people don't pay attention to what gets loaded into them. As soon as a guy in a delivery uniform shows up, he stops existing to other people. But the only thing you could remember was that they weren't wearing a uniform." John tried to ignore the hidden accusation, because he knew it wasn't one. Whatever they had drugged him with, had knocked him out within seconds. His memory hadn't been a big help in solving the case, and Sherlock had been remarkably silent about that.  
  
"Unfortunately," Sherlock continued, "I cannot rely on the criminal world to come up with the most practical ideas, which is why I took a look at the rout of every van and delivery van which appeared on any surveillance camera between Baker Street and the church on that afternoon. That narrowed it down to seven potential cars. And from there it wasn't too difficult to find the right one."  
  
"What did you find?"  
  
"Not much. They used fake ID's. Mycroft has better resources than a car rental service" Sherlock said, before John could think of, let alone voice his question. "And they didn't pay in cash."  
  
"You had a look at their bank details?"  
  
"The account is linked to a media company. But the person behind it must be pretty influential, otherwise it wouldn't be this impossible to get a name."  
  
John took a sip before finding the right words.  
  
"You don't think it was Moriarty." he finally said softly, keeping his eyes on Sherlock.  
  
"Moriarty is dead, and he would have used a delivery van, instead of a white, non-descriptive one." he said with a shrug.  
  
"One of his people?"  
  
"The timing would have fit. I just stopped keeping a low profile. But if it had been on his behalf, they wouldn't have allowed me to... save you." Sherlock said very quietly. It wasn't as if the thought hadn't occurred to him. One of the reasons he had been unusually thoroughly analysing the material Mycroft had sent him was to answer that question. And the fact that he hadn't managed to turn up a name was more than just bothering him. He had taken a look at the company's employees, the management, but there wasn't anything suspicious about them. Well, not the right kind of 'suspicious'. Mycroft was keeping tabs on them, but there was nothing left he himself could do. He had broken his part of Moriarty's contract and the fact that it hadn't had any consequences yet, told him that Moriarty had nothing to do with it. Moreover, as much as Moriarty had liked to play games, his men did not. He had had more than enough opportunities to learn that lesson.  
  
He cleared his throat. "And they didn't target Mrs Hudson and Garry."  
  
"Greg." John said, a smile playing around his lips.  
  
"Greg."  
  
"Not Moriarty then?"  
  
"Not Moriarty."  
  
For a few minutes they were drinking tea in silence and John found himself trying to build up some courage, wondering if Sherlock knew what he was about to say.  
  
"I'm ready." he said, but it ended up being a mere whisper.  
  
"Ready for what?"  
  
"For your story." He wasn't sure why it had become hard to breathe. "But I have one condition. You hear me first."  
  
He knew the moment he'd allow Sherlock to speak, he'd explain those two years away. The nights during which sleeping or not sleeping hadn't made a difference as it had hurt just the same. The way he hadn't been able to clear Sherlock's room, or just put the damn microscope away from the kitchen, because something in him had refused to believe that it hadn't belonged there any more. How he had wished the reason he hadn't been able to sleep would have been a screeching violin playing the ugliest piece of music never written. How he had missed cleaning the shelves of the fridge pretending the stains were only dye. How he had wanted to have arguments about always empty milk bottles and if caring was or wasn't an advantage and not paying attention to Sherlock's words because he had known better than to believe he'd actually meant them. How he wouldn't have minded waking up and feeling half-dead from some unknown drug Sherlock had slipped into whatever he had had for dinner the previous evening, making Sherlock promise he'd never do it again, knowing all too well he would repeat the 'experiment' in a heartbeat, and then ending up drugging Sherlock's tea because he hadn't slept for three days in a go. How he had stopped dreaming about Afghanistan, and still, every night his tossing and turning had woken Mary up, he had been immensely happy he had been to war. Because it had given him an excuse for his nightmares and had allowed him not to tell Mary the truth.  
  
And yet, Sherlock would say a few words and the worst time of his life would be gone. As much as he was looking forward to it, he wanted Sherlock to know. Not everything, just as Sherlock wouldn't tell him the whole story, but enough to let him know losing him had hurt.  
  
"After you ... jumped," he finally started in a soft, but steady voice not able to look at anything but the mug in front of him , "Molly didn't allow me to go into the mortuary. She didn't agree to give me a copy of the autopsy report, even though I knew it was she who did it. So I did the only thing I could do. I went home and thought about it." About their stupid fight. About the words he wished he had never said. How he had wanted him to have another reason, although that wouldn't have helped the pain to go away. About Moriarty and how he had made him doubt Sherlock for a second. About the guilt which hadn't allowed him to breath forever.  
  
"And you know what? I thought you were alive. That was the only way the whole thing made sense to me."  
  
He gave Sherlock a half-smile upon seeing a hint of surprise in his eyes and looked down on the mug again. He trusted Sherlock to know better than to interrupt him and, for once, he didn't get disappointed.  
  
"Your note. I couldn't believe you actually meant it." He wasn't going to describe how he still remembered every single word of it, how it had been a constant thing in his dreams, the beginning of his nightmares. Haunting him. And how, night after night, he had watched Sherlock die again, never able to save him, never finding the right words to make him stay.  
  
"The first time we met. You couldn't have set that up. You didn't know my session would finish early, that I would take a walk through the park and that Stamford would want to have a chat with me. That I'd mention I wouldn't mind sharing a flat with someone. You said you had looked me up, but you had no idea it would be me Stamford would drag along to meet you."  
  
"I was sharing a flat with you. I watched you working on cases, blaming yourself whenever something went wrong. Whenever you thought you hadn't been good enough. If it hadn't been real, you wouldn't have needed to push yourself that hard. And you didn't solve them for the praise, because more often than not you didn't get any. You solved them for the puzzle," he said meeting Sherlock's eyes again."You wouldn't have faked that."  
  
"So, I asked myself, why would you leave an obviously fake suicide note? And the only answer I could come up with was that you were trying to tell me you didn't die for real. Still, you wanted the world to believe you were dead, so I did my part in the play. I attended your funeral, not expecting it to be real. I grieved." Sometimes for real whenever he had doubted his own deductions. When he had started remembering those seemingly endless seconds during which he had held a limp wrist, and hadn’t wanted to stop waiting for a faint beat, a breath, for anything allowing his mind not to believe the impossible. But the words never left his lips.  
  
"I waited for you to come back. Because you had to. Once things would quiet down." he said, focusing on the mug again, not trusting himself to be able to hide his feelings.  
  
"But you didn't," he said calmly, glad it didn't sound like an accusation. "Not after one month, not after half a year. And I started to believe that whyever you jumped, it wouldn't make sense to me."  Because if he had been alive, he would have been back by then. Or at least, he would have left a message. He could feel his anger rising again, but this time he wasn't willing to give in and concentrated on the next point of his account instead.

"I found another place to live..." He wouldn't tell him that he had moved out because he couldn't stand coming home to their flat any longer, opening the door and hoping Sherlock would be there.  
  
"I met Mary. Things started to change." He had meant to say that they had started to hurt less, but he wasn't sure if that had been true or if, by then, he had simply learnt to handle the pain.  
  
"And just as I accepted that I'd never see you ever again, you turn up asking me to pick up the pieces as if those two years had never happened... And I couldn't." he said apologetically looking at Sherlock.  
  
"I didn't mean to-"  
  
"I know." he said softly. Because he did. He had ended up being collateral damage. It had been him or Sherlock and Sherlock had done what he had thought would be right.  
  
"I shouldn't have punched you." John said after a moment, hoping there was as much guilt in his eyes as in Sherlock's. "I'm sorry-"  
  
"I know." Sherlock interrupted him. It didn't feel right. John trying to apologise to him. He wondered if a part of him had known the things John had just said all along. If he only hadn't wanted to acknowledge them, because it would have made all the more obvious how much he had hurt him. He couldn't decide if he had really underestimated John's loyalty, or if the shortcomings of his 'note' had been part of the plan. This was one of the few times he actually hoped he had been plain stupid, because it would have made him a better person. One who honestly had tried to ease the pain, even though it could have meant to lose John's friendship.  
  
"I think I'm the one owing you an apology. I didn't know my death would affect you... this much."  
  
For a few seconds John tried to understand how it had never occurred to I-can-read-your-sister's-drinking-habits-in-your-phone Sherlock Holmes that his death would leave an impact on his best friend. Hadn't he expected to matter to other people?  
  
"We are good." John said and he was surprised to find he actually meant every word. He felt as if after running for two years, he could finally let go and stop. He still ached, there was still some anger left, maybe he was still going to wake up from dreaming about - it, but it wouldn't matter. Not like before. After all, it wasn't as if he hadn't had nightmares before the worst day of his life. Maybe he'd start dreaming again about Afghanistan, he thought, not sure how he felt about it.  
  
"I'm glad you are alive." he said a smile pulling at the corners of his mouth, wondering if he had ever taken the time between being almost burned alive and being blown up to tell Sherlock the obvious. It was a gross understatement, but he knew Sherlock would understand. He would have loved to give him a hug, but it was Sherlock. So he didn't and waited for Sherlock to start his account instead.  
  
"Me too." Sherlock said, leaving it to John to work out if he had meant John or himself.  
  
For a long time, he didn't know what to say. It was funny how a few days ago he had been so sure to find the right words, and now he didn't know if the speech he had prepared months ago, during sleepless nights which he hadn't been really able to afford, would be enough. Finally, he suppressed a sigh and followed his own advice which he had been giving his clients: Start at the beginning. So he did, trying to notice every trace of a reaction he could read in John's eyes.  
  
"Ever since our meeting with Moriarty at the pool, Mycroft and I had been trying to come up with a plan to destroy his empire." he said, his voice ripped off all emotions, focusing only on John and the facts.  
  
"We had to offer him something we knew he wouldn't be able to resist, something he wouldn't think Mycroft would be willing to sacrifice." It had taken him months to make Mycroft agree to use the most obvious option, to make him cave in to reason. Stupid sentiment. But that wasn't any of John's business.  
  
"We set up the game, gave him the pieces and watched how he used them according to our rules, making sure he wouldn't notice he wasn't the one controlling them. And then we played our parts." Sherlock continued as if he had been talking about the weather. As if one of those parts hadn't involved him jumping off a building.  
  
"When Moriarty showed up at Ms Riley's flat, he confirmed the final detail of information we needed. In the end, we knew once I'll meet him for the last time there were only a couple of things he'd do, leading to 13 possibilities. And Mycroft made sure they would be taken care of." Except for one, he thought. There was one thing Mycroft would never have plans for, and he had been seldom more grateful for that then during the past one and a half years.  
  
"I had to make you leave to get enough time to meet Moriarty."  
  
John opened his mouth to say something, but he didn't get the chance.  
  
"He told me I'd have to jump if I wanted to avoid the consequences. I asked him to call the snipers off, but he committed suicide, leaving me with only one option."  
  
"So it wasn't you who-?" He didn't voice the last two words. He didn't need to.  
  
"No." There was no point in telling John the ugly details. That he had talked to him, using the right words just like the cabbie... That even though he hadn't pulled the trigger, somehow, it still had felt like it.  
  
"And he is really dead? According to the Yard there wasn't... another body."  
  
"Mycroft took care of it. With us staging a suicide, he made sure Moriarty didn't get the same idea."  
  
He could feel John's eyes searching him, but he didn't worry. It was one of the few parts of his story which was nothing but the truth. Moriarty was dead, Mycroft had compared his DNA and fingerprints from Moriarty's tea cup he had left when he had visited 221B. The case was a picture book report.  
  
"Then I texted Mycroft which plan to use," Sherlock continued, "and he set the wheels in motion. Unfortunately, you came back too early."  
  
"You didn't want me to watch?" John asked surprised, his eyes softening a bit...  
  
"Not like that."  
  
... only to harden again, when he heard Sherlock's tentative answer. Sherlock realised telling him that he actually was trying to explain why he had told him where to stay, making sure he wouldn't get much closer, wouldn't help. Something in him would have preferred if he hadn't seen John while telling him his note, but the selfish part of his mind hadn't minded that he could say his goodbyes more or less personally to him. He had been only a dot on the pavement, a dot he had known he wasn't going to see for several months if things went according to plans. And never if they didn't.  
  
"John, you had to believe I was dead. The sniper targeting you had to believe I was dead. We didn't know all the methods Moriarty used to guarantee I'd die for real. And we couldn't afford to take the risk."  
  
"So you jumped." John said quietly. It wasn't that he couldn't see why he had done it. Why he would never apologise for leaping off Barts' roof. Rationally, John knew it had been necessary. That if they hadn't come up with that plan, maybe, one day Moriarty had turned up playing a similar game, ending everything for real. He understood Sherlock's decision, but that didn't make it any less painful.  
  
"... and landed on a big air bag, small enough to be covered by the brick building from the sniper's point of view." Mycroft had sealed everything higher than the second floor. He had also closed off the street, closed one side of the hospital, made sure nobody would be there to watch them from the other buildings. But he wasn't going to bore John with these details.  
  
"You were run over by the bicycle to give the _few_ members of my homeless network time to cut up the air bag and store the remains in the ambulance which was next to the building. Some blood and a rubber ball completed the effect. By the time you got up I was dead enough to fool you. Molly and I finished the autopsy report with the help of the guy who looked a bit like me, the one Moriarty had hired to kidnap those children and had got rid of afterwards. I spent the night at Molly's place. And a few days later I was on my way to France..."  
  
If he hadn't known leaving John to his own musings wouldn't be safe, he would have stopped here. Of course he had made up his mind of what he'd say. He had a plan, but he would have preferred not to use it. But John's expecting look told him he wouldn't get around to finishing his story.  
  
"Mycroft needed someone to become part of Moriarty's network. A mole who didn't need to care about official protocols while collecting evidence which would allow the government to act accordingly." Unfortunately, working as a freelancer for the government meant he wasn't supposed to screw up before delivering information. Otherwise, Mycroft would have needed to break every rule in the book to get him out. Not as if Mycroft wouldn't have done it anyway, but Sherlock had been glad they had never needed to make use of their last resort. Then again, enduring the different torturing techniques used on the world's seven continents had been hard enough even though he had known Mycroft had been watching his back. In Serbia, too literally for his liking.  
  
"You could have told me you were alive." John said when Sherlock remained silent.  
  
"I really couldn't." He had entertained that option. But what if he hadn't come back? He couldn't have made John lose him again.  
  
John let the topic go and Sherlock hoped his friend hadn't been able to guess the true meaning behind those words.  
  
"Two years?" And for once Sherlock didn't correct his mistake.  
  
"If there had been another way, I would have made use of it."  
  
He still had come back sooner than expected, he wanted to tell John. And couldn't because it would have led to more questions, and he just couldn't tell him the truth.  
  
After the disaster in Serbia Mycroft hadn't allowed him to finish what would have been the last mission according to their original plan, assuring him they'd be able to sort things out without him. Mycroft had given him that case in London instead, knowing he wouldn't be able to say no to London. To Baker Street. To John. He knew Mycroft had been afraid he wouldn't survive another one. He had never meant to be away for eighteen months. But it had been impossible for him to move on before getting Mycroft's okay...  
  
However, he didn't want John to know about the ugly side of the world. John, who believed in things like love and empathy, who had been able to forgive him, who still wanted to be friends with him in spite of what he had done.  
  
He couldn't ignore that in a way he was the last thing John needed. That it had been his fault that mere days after his return someone had put John into a bonfire. His friend who had learnt to live without fighting on the battlefield. As much as Sherlock wanted to, he couldn't keep him save. He was the light to this world's criminal moths. And somehow they always ended up hurting John.  He had promised himself a long time ago, that he'd protect him, that he'd go first. But he also knew that wouldn't be always enough. He knew he was being selfish, but although London was not the only place which could have provided him with interesting cases, he had chosen to come back. For real. He could have lived without John, he could have started another life on the other side of the world, but without John it just wouldn't have been the same. He hadn't wanted to miss him any more, even if he was painfully aware of the consequences. 'I'll make it up to you.' he thought, without having an idea of how to make the scale even again.  
  
He looked at John and thought of all the secrets he would take to his grave. He didn't want to rob John's world off its magic, because that was one of the few thing he was actually able to do for him.  
  
And instead of explaining all the reasons why he couldn't have changed a single thing about their plan he said "It's good to be back." with a smile on his lips.  
  
"It's good to have you back." came John's answer accompanied by an honest smile, and for the first time Sherlock believed that maybe, if he was very lucky, Moriarty wouldn't get his revenge after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know, the solution is not quite what Sherlock told Anderson. But why would Sherlock tell Anderson the truth?
> 
> What else did I get wrong? In _BBC Sherlock_ Sherlock is sure he finished his mission. But this was part of my original draft and I didn't want to give it up only because Mark Gatiss decided against that option.
> 
> And the idea of them having a proper reunion talk is not too far fetched: 
> 
> From _'The Empty Hearse'_ :
> 
> **John: Sherlock, you are going to tell me how you did it? How you jumped off that building and survived?  
> **  
>  Sherlock: You know my methods, John. I am known to be indestructible.
> 
> Aaaaaaaaaaaand. My apologies if you think this chapter was cheesy.
> 
> Disclaimer: Of course, the stuff you're reading ATM doesn't have all too much in common with my original draft. I'm not that good (it had 8 chapters, and the plot stayed overall the same. But there was no Mary, which is why the following chapters are a bit different from what they used to be).


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mary joins the case and things become interesting.

She didn't know what a typical evening at Baker Street was supposed to be like, but this couldn't be far off she thought sitting on the sofa surrounded by read case files next to John who was absorbed in the mockingly short crime scene report in file number three, which only confirmed that their killer hadn't changed his MO. By now she barely noticed the smell of burnt wood and of something she had first thought was an interesting choice of incense stick coming from 221B's kitchen, the most mysterious place in the universe, if John's absurd stories were not completely off the truth. And they never were.  
  
She let her eyes wander from Fouler's file in her hands to John, to the half-empty trays of takeaway on the cluttered table and the barely touched plate next to Sherlock from which he was occasionally picking some chips, mostly to avoid having an argument about something as mundane as food, while he was focusing on Walters' file, on words even she knew by heart, never mind him, comparing them to the facts stored away in his 'mind palace'. Apparently, he didn't like something about the crime scene;  well, it wasn't exactly a deduction she'd have been proud of.  
  
Unexpectedly, he raised his head, their eyes met and her mind tried to come up with something to say.  
  
"You said Fouler was cheating on her boyfriend?" she asked and she could see how he was pondering if she had meant to say those words all along.  
  
"Am I the first one who reads case files?" she added with a confident smile before he could have come to a final conclusion.  
  
"No, but you are the first of his girlfriends who does so with a fond smile on her lips."  
  
She'd need to be more careful, she thought, but a lifetime of training allowed her to know the realisation hadn't changed her features.  
  
"They remind me of John's blog..." she said, subconsciously fighting her first instinct to turn away. It was a stupid thing to say, but what else could she have said? That reading case files was the most exciting thing which had happened to her in the past years?  
  
"You're happy about us having a case?" he asked sceptically.  
  
"Now, that's a first." John smiled at her.  
  
"I can imagine." she said with a quiet laugh and leaned against his right shoulder. For a second they looked at each other and losing herself into those blue eyes made her feel like a teenage girl who was in love for the first time all over again.  
  
"And since you were asking, yes, according to some PM's on Fouler's social accounts she was having an affair with one of Casile's friends."  
  
"What would give Casile a motive. Who has an alibi. So we're back at square one." John completed the thought.  
  
Sherlock used the interruption to glance at his phone, even though he must have known there weren't any missed messages or calls.  
  
"How long does it take to run some basic background check ups on the victims and their relatives?" he sighed and continued studying Walter's file.  
  
She tried to focus on the page in her hands again, but she knew re-reading it, or any of the other files, wouldn't give her any new ideas. Thinking about it, the files did remind her of John's blog. But there was more to it than met the eye.  
  
It had taken John a while to tell her about his dead best friend. Not as if he had wanted to talk much about him, and she hadn't really asked. But slowly, he had given her enough information to be able to piece things together. He had mentioned the blog. Their adventures. Also some of the unpublished ones. There had been a time when she had asked herself how much of those stories had been actually true. Not only because they seemed to be highly unlikely, but because they showed a side of John she hadn't got the chance to know. Not properly.  
  
He had never told her he would have missed him, not in words. Nevertheless, she had learnt to see the marks that life had left behind. It hadn't been about him going to the cemetery once in a month or her accompanying him sometimes to the black, glossy gravestone with only a name on it, as if the life of Sherlock Holmes couldn't have been measured in something as simple as numbers; but the various, small habits which had made John seem like one part of a gone whole: the bottle of disinfectant he liked to keep in the kitchen at hand, even though she had never seen him using it. How he didn't change the radio station when they were playing classical music with a violin solo. And how, when coming across an unusual crime in the papers, sometimes, for a second, she had been able to see something like a glimpse of pain in his eyes. As if without Sherlock they weren't supposed to happen.  
  
Sometimes, she had wondered what it would have been like to meet the other John, the one who spent his spare time fighting crimes with his impossible friend. And now, against the odds, she could.  
  
Without those entries she wouldn't have noticed the Sherlock-shaped hole in John's life. At least, she would have attributed it to something else.  
  
And then there had been that one time she had asked about Sherlock. The night before the bonfire she had said the four magical words she had always wanted to voice: "Tell me about Sherlock." However, it hadn't been only for her own sake. She had wanted him to realise what she had been able to see all along. That while Sherlock was "the ignorant, selfish idiot", as John had called him in the first five minutes, there had been a reason why he had endured Sherlock's antics, why he had learnt to miss them.  
  
It had also been the blog which had made her pick Sherlock's side when he had come back. Although that night she had met the genius who didn't care about others' opinions, she had been also able to see the damage fighting Moriarty's network had come with. Sherlock had done a good job at hiding the signs, but he hadn't been able to fool her. She knew what to look for. She had done the same.  
  
She also knew he had looked forward to coming back to his old life and John. That at times it might have been the only thing which had kept him going, making it worth the struggles that kind of missions used to come with. Struggles. When had she started to sugarcoat her own thoughts? And while she hoped John would never understand the true meaning behind Sherlock's words, she did.  
  
However, unlike her, he hadn't had the luxury of not telling John anything about the time he had been away.  
  
That night he hadn't needed someone to make him realise all the ways he had betrayed their friendship in order to save it, but someone to show him things were going to be all right. He had expected John to forgive him without filling in the details. Without letting him know what coming back had really cost him.  And as long as he'd have a chance, he'd never tell John the truth. In a way, she and Sherlock were partners in crime, living their lies, as none of them wanted to find out how far John would go in order to forgive them. None of them thought he'd still want their company.  
  
Only that their lies might help to solve the case, she thought, reviewing the page again.  
  
"That's a joke, right? Nobody can expect anyone to solve a case with the help of these ten lines." John interrupted her thoughts.  
  
"I think that's part of the point." Sherlock murmured.  
  
With a yawn John shut the file and looked at the one in her hands.  
  
"If Fouler was cheating on her boyfriend - is that how the murders are connected?" he asked and ignored his friend who shot him an annoyed glance. At least he cared to explain without the additional touch of acid in his voice.  
  
"It would explain Fouler's death. But what about Walters? Withnell loved her, and Lestrade says his wife didn't know about the affair." he said and grabbed some more chips.  
  
"And Walters is the only one with a political history?" she asked.  
  
"Unfortunately, yes." He turned the page, not caring about the greasy stains his fingers left on the paper.  
  
Why would she have perfumed a crime scene, she asked herself. Somehow it always came down to that question. And no matter how much she thought about it, she couldn't come up with a single reason.  
  
"Sherlock, why is he leaving those perfumes?" John asked, as if he had read her mind. But he didn't get an answer.  
  
"Sherlock." he tried his luck again. "He does this. A lot." he sighed and reached for the scatter cushion.  
  
It wasn't till the overstuffed Union Jack pillow hit him that Sherlock noticed John must have spent some time trying to catch his attention.  
  
"Do you have an explanation for the perfumes?" John asked with an apologetic, but not unamused look.  
  
"I have several theories, but none of them are plausible enough."  
  
"I guessed as much. Why isn't he using it to hide some traces?"  
  
"What kind of traces?" he asked back, looking expectantly at John.  
  
John was about to point out the most obvious option at hand, but Sherlock cut him off.  
  
"If he knows his victims spend the night on their own, he also knows they'll be found pretty soon. He doesn't want to hide the smell of the dead bodies."  
  
Fair enough.  
  
"What if he is doing it because of an ingredient which is common in perfumes?" she suggested. He had a degree in Chemistry, which certainly made him the most qualified person in the room to answer that question.  
  
"There are easier ways to add ethyl and benzyl alcohol or distilled water to the air at a crime scene."  
  
"Is that what happened to the kitchen?" John asked with a smirk.  
  
"Nope. Before I went out to buy what our serial killer had used I wondered what two random fragrances can possibly have in common. Which is why I compared our aftershaves. Unfortunately, I broke the bottle of yours. Later I wanted to get rid of the smell and as I was bored and haven’t done any research on arson for ages- well, I was getting out of practise."  Had he really been bored or had the little accident given him an excellent excuse to fill the kitchen with smoke? Blimey. What must it have been like to share a flat with him...  
  
"Naturally, you set the kitchen on fire." Marry huffed a small laugh.  
  
"It wasn't the kitchen." His defensive tone told them he was done talking about the matter. She certainly wasn't going to tell him how to conduct his strange experiments.  
  
She closed the file and tried to put it on the coffee table, but unfortunately, her position didn't really allow her to reach it.  
  
"So you broke my bottle. Why can't you damage your own things?" John asked teasingly and took the file from her. However, just as they took their attention off him, Sherlock gasped for air. Looking up, they saw his eyes widen.  
  
"What?"  
  
"Oh," Sherlock breath, "that's brilliant."  
  
He leaped out of the chair in a speed which made her feel sorry for Mrs Hudson living in the flat under them. Well, Sherlock.  
  
"John, I need your phone." he said holding his own mobile in his hands.  
  
"Why?" But he didn't wait for an answer and pulled it from his pocket. A second later, Sherlock's fingers were dancing across the screen.  
  
"It seems Lestrade is not supposed to talk with me about the case." Sherlock murmured while typing frantically.  
  
After sending off the text, something the DI wouldn't read before tomorrow morning, Sherlock noticed their questioning eyes locked onto him.  
  
"Can't you see it? The perfume. The only thing they have in common. He is never using the victim's perfume or aftershave." he said, as if that sentence would explain everything.  
  
"Except for Walters." she pointed out.  
  
"That's what's wrong with her bedroom." he said smiling like a Cheshire cat. "There wasn't a bottle of Dolce on her dressing table. It's a new fragrance, and Mrs Walters certainly had that one favourite she had been using for the past thirty-something years. I should have seen that ages ago..."  
  
"Hold on, how did they know the name of the perfume," John said pointing at the files, "if the bottle was not in the room? Most people don't have your nose and, Sherlock, I'm sorry to break these news to you, but there are not that many people who are familiar with that article on your blog."  
  
"I texted that question to Lestrade a minute ago." He was obviously pleased that John was keeping up. "And that he should take a look at Hart's beauty products."  
  
The blank stares they were giving him revealed he had lost them again.  
  
"Think. We have a bottle of Channel No 5 belonging to Mrs Wilkers. Then there is Casile's cheap aftershave, and Hart would fit into the picture."  
  
"You think the perfumes mean something?" she said, while her brain was working on what the information could possibly be.  
  
"Hart?" John raised an eyebrow.  
  
"It has nothing to do with her slapping me. Yes she slapped me. It's not a big deal, get over it." Sherlock said upon seeing her reaction, and added in his usual mater-of-fact tone "According to her husband she didn't seem to be too fond of her mum. And it would explain her odd behaviour. She made a mistake. She knew Walters didn't die a natural death and as an honest and law-abiding citizen she called the police. At the same time, she didn't want people to find out about her mother not being faithful to her dead husband."  
  
"But all of them have an alibi." John noted.  
  
"Exactly," he said beaming away. "As well as a motive. Fouler cheated on Casile. I can't pinpoint Wilkers' motive but I don't have enough information on her in the first place."  
  
And suddenly, there it was. The spark of an idea. The other reason why those files had made her smile. She appreciated a job well done. Even if this time it hadn't been her own doing. But whoever was behind these murders knew how to play the game. A professional. And just like that she had solved the case. Before Sherlock. On the other hand, this time, unlike him, she had been able to fall back on more than enough years of personal experience. He'd certainly see the solution any minute now. It fit. It explained the alibis. Still, she couldn't just tell him without drawing too much attention to herself... Maybe one day he was going to find out about her secret even without her helping she thought with a pang. Then again, she wasn't bad. She was used to keeping her past to herself, even with a knife at her throat. This wasn't much different.  
  
Causally, she took the file from John and was satisfied that, in spite of all the adrenaline in her veins, her hands were not shaking. She opened it, and was ready to offer him some help and ask if the crime scenes weren't a bit too clean, pondering how much a nurse was supposed to know about these things, when Sherlock stopped dead in his tracks.  
  
"Oh, that's neat." he whispered, his gleaming eyes fixed at a point somewhere far behind the tapestry as if he was admiring a masterpiece. Which he actually was, she reminded herself.  
  
"They hired someone." he finally said. "That's why all of them have an alibi. They knew they were going to need one. The same someone. Hence the similar crime scenes. Someone who isn't new in the business which is why there isn't any evidence. Someone who wants us to know they get killed."

"A hit man?" Mary asked while Sherlock picked up John's phone from the table again.  
  
"Yes, as in 'Dear Jim, please, will you fix it for me to get rid of my cheating girlf-" Sherlock interrupted himself and almost dropped the phone. But not because he would have noticed how his words had made John cringe or that she had no idea what he was referring to.  
  
"He left a hint." John said, catching Sherlock's unvoiced thought, but it still didn't explain where the almost tangible tension in the air had suddenly come from. And they weren't going to elaborate.  
  
"Why should anyone do that? Leave a hint?"  
  
Sherlock and John exchange a telling look, but neither of them gave her an answer. And yet she understood. The inaudible whys and whos and Sherlock's reference. Moriarty. For a moment she wondered if Mycroft had ever got flowers or a thank-you card from her old unit after the Holmes brothers had done the world the favour of getting rid of one of its most skilful high-profile criminals. And how Sherlock, someone who neither had the right training, nor the -  well, he was certainly fit, but not like most of her partners had been -  had managed to finish a job in one and a half years which they haven't been able to start in three.  
  
"Haven't the faintest. But it's the only explanation which makes sense." at last Sherlock said. If John hadn't been there, right in front of her, she would have actually believed him. Oh, he was good.  
  
After he had sent the text he put the phone down on the table. Just before the display went black, her eyes fell on the four numbers of the digital clock: 01:28 AM. Saturday.  Had he already picked his next victim? she pondered. And they did too.  
  
Slowly, John exhaled a breath and flexed the fingers of his left hand. She already knew him too well to know he felt guilty for enjoying that it wasn't trembling. And that it was another thing she wasn't supposed to know about.  
  
"Good, how do we stop these murders?" John asked, trying to make up for his inappropriate feelings.  
  
"I told Lestrade to pay some attention to our suspects' bank accounts and see if any of them have something in common. But if our serial killer is half as professional as he seems to be, he asked his customers to pay in cash," Sherlock said and sat down in his chair. "It's more difficult to trace back little envelopes..." He closed his eyes, index fingers pressed against temples.  
  
"If they are paying him in one go and in advance, chances are that information won't help you to catch the killer." John said.  
  
Good, _she_ had never accepted a job where her clients hadn't paid in advance. But if Sherlock was right, then their serial killer had a motive to bother with the perfume. Seriously? Going through all the fuss without leaving enough evidence to arrest the hirers? As if the Met had been able to arrest people for owning a certain brand of perfume which had got scattered on a crime scene by accident. They needed a bit more than that... Suddenly she sympathised with some of Sherlock's less nicer personality traits.  
  
"Maybe he doesn't only want to _drive_ attention to his customers..." She just couldn't stop herself, even though Sherlock certainly didn't need her hint.  
  
"Right. You mean he gets the money afterwards." John concluded.  
  
"That's what we are hoping for." Sherlock said and a second later he was at the door tying his famous, blue scarf.  
  
 "It's half past one, Sherlock. Where are you going?" John asked, which was an excellent question, as she was pretty sure he hadn't just deduced the next victim on the killer's list.  
  
"Lestrade's place. I need to know if there is a fourth victim and I have to take a look at the file. Besides, he is starting to be annoying with ignoring my texts."  
  
"There's his job at stake."  
  
"There are people's lives at stake, if our killer is not taking the weekend off."  
  
John shot him a look, assuming Sherlock had only chosen those words for his sake. But what could they do? Ignore the bait? The fact that he hadn't delivered them with enough empathy didn't make those words any less true.  
  
"And I for my part don't want to wait till somebody comes across the next victim. Anyone who doesn't like the idea of breaking and entering can stay." With that he left, his eager steps echoing on the stairs.  
  
"Was that an invitation?" she asked looking at John who still hadn't taken his eyes off the open door.  
  
Finally, he turned around to face her.  
  
"Do you want to let him go on his own?" she asked evaluating the pros and cons of escaping her boring life for some hours. She'd be careful, they wouldn't notice her being there she promised herself. And if they were really planning a break-in on short note, there were plenty of things which could go wrong. Maybe, she'd come in handy, after all.  
  
"No. But if you want to s-"  
  
"I'd rather come along."


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A not quite break-in at Lestrade's place...

A cab ride later, John and Mary watched as Sherlock opened the door of a flat in an old but neat brick building, and John was surprised by not being surprised by Sherlock having his own key, suspecting this was not the 'breaking and entering' he had referred to.  
  
"He picks his pockets when he thinks he's annoying." John told Mary as she hadn't had the misfortune of learning about Sherlock's slightly illegal habits yet. Never mind the actually illegal ones. Or those involving him. Suddenly, all the things Mary didn't know about hit him with full force. His unregistered gun, the cabbie, the Baskeville case, the crimes, possibly treason, he and Sherlock had committed against the government without his knowledge. Everything that had stopped being relevant with Sherlock's death. Things he was certainly not going to discuss in front of Lestrade's door.  
  
"Which is always." Sherlock cut in on John's thoughts.  
  
"Which is not exactly true."  
  
"I can't pick a DI's locks, John."  
  
Sherlock stepped inside and turned on the light with an attitude as if he was coming home.  
  
"You know, there is such a thing as a doorbell." John said and was about to cross the threshold when Sherlock suddenly stopped and turned around, as if he had just changed his mind about their little endeavour.  
  
"Niceties.... Talking about time-consuming activities.  We're running out of time. Go down to the garage. Grey VW. In ten, no, eight minutes I'll be there with the keys."  
  
And before John could have pointed out all the disadvantages of stealing a DI's car for a break-in, Sherlock had already vanished into thin air.

***********

Greg tried to ignore the light falling on his closed eyelids. The impression of somebody sitting at his bedside. He knew it was just his body fighting the inevitable, trying to catch a few more _seconds_ of sleep. But it was no use. He could sense Sherlock's impatient presence, waiting and at the same time not waiting for him to wake up.  
  
Wearily, he squinted against the merciless light, and the first sign of him not being asleep was greeted by Sherlock rattling off something about the case. Perfume. Hitman. File. Address. What his sleep deprived brain managed to filter out of Sherlock's fusillade of words didn't make an awful lot of sense to him, and he wasn't sure if it was due to exhaustion, or just the general effect Sherlock had on people.  
  
"Please, tell me you aren't working on the case." he said rubbing his eyes, his voice raspy from sleep. As much as he was glad about Sherlock being back from the dead, he hadn't been missing these late-night visits.  
  
"If you were listening, you'd know I-we," Sherlock corrected himself, "solved it. Most of it. And if you don't want to deal with an unnecessary victim, you better give me the latest file."  
  
It took him a moment to process the information.  
  
"Good," he caved in as sooner or later that was what he'd have ended up doing anyway, and got up, feeling a bit dizzy from - his eyes fell on the alarm on his bedside table - not being asleep at 1:58 AM, and crossed the corridor with Sherlock following right on his heels into the reasonably messy kitchen: some plates and a more often than once re-used mug standing next to the sink, breadcrumbs on the worktop which was where he had eaten his last meals as the kitchen table was covered with several staples of case files and loose sheets of paper. His coat was carelessly draped over the back of a chair, some books placed on the chair's surface. He had seen Sherlock living on his own, so he didn't really care about any of it.  
  
"Most of this is not about the case." he yawned searching through the files on the table. He didn't want to affront Sherlock by making him believe he had been withholding evidence, while Sherlock had spent some restless nights working with those scraps of information they had managed to gather about the murders.  
  
"Unsolved cases?" Sherlock asked and picked up one of the envelopes.  
  
"Old divorce papers." In a manner of speaking.  
  
"With the Yard's emblem?" Sherlock was eyeing him suspiciously.  
  
"None of your business." he said and put the file Sherlock had been holding back on the table, realising he should have come up with a better lie.  
  
"Don't expect too much. We haven't had the time to do a lot of background check ups yet. Not everybody is able to pull all-nighters on end." Lestrade said and handed him the right file, noticing Sherlock's exhaust features.  
  
"Talking about it. When was the last time you slept?"  
  
"Not relevant." Sherlock snatched the file impatiently out of his hands.  
  
"It is relevant to me."  
  
"Today morning." he murmured while skimming though the text. Peter Lewis. 71. Unidentified aftershave.  
  
"The last time you slept for more than three hours?"  
  
"Any close friends or relatives?"  
  
They looked at each other, both of them waiting for the other one to give an answer. And just like that, he, an experienced DI who was used to difficult questionings, didn't have another choice but accept that he couldn't make Sherlock talk about things he didn't want to.  
  
"Wife, two sons, one daughter. That's all I have for now."  
  
"Does anyone of them have a foolproof alibi?"  
  
Sherlock met Lestrade's surprised look with a bright smile.  
  
"I need the address. Now."  
  
"If you can prove it was him I'd rather send a police car."  
  
"It wasn't him. Airtight alibi. But he has information which will point us in the right direction. Don't worry, you'll still be able to arrest him afterwards."  
  
"And you think he'll give you that information if you just ask politely enough?" Lestrade sneered.  
  
"Stop making things more difficult than they already are."  
  
"Sherlock, I don't make the rules." Lestrade sighed, all mockery gone from his voice. "Tell me what you have and whoever is on duty will take care of it."  
  
"It was all of them... The perfume at the crime scene belongs to the person who hired a hit man to do the job. That's why everyone with a possible motive also has an alibi."  
  
"Why did the killer leave it in the first place?"  
  
"I hope in a few hours you'll be able to ask him that very question."  
  
"So you want to observe our suspect?" he asked piecing together what Sherlock would need the address for.  
  
"Yes. Whatever he does- or did- tonight," Sherlock said taking demonstratively a glimpse at his watch, "could have something to do with the murder. He won't want the killer to wait for the money."  
  
"It's a long shot." Lestrade noted after a moment of silence.  
  
"One which might solve the case."  
  
"Good. Make yourself a cup of tea," he pointed at the kettle, " there is also a packet of biscuits in one of the cupboards - feel free to deduce which one- and I'll get my phone."  
  
"As if the Met was discreet enough..." Sherlock sighed and began pacing the small room.  
  
"I don't make the rules." he repeated and left.  
  
Three minutes later he entered the kitchen, fully dressed and not paying attention to Cater on the other end of the line. Why had he expected him to be still there?, he asked himself looking at his notebook which Sherlock had generously left on the table. After all these years he should have known better than to leave it in his coat pocket, he thought tiredly.  
  
"Don't be ridiculous." Cater finished his elaborations Lestrade hadn't really been listening to.  
  
"What's your problem? It's better than wasting another d-" but Cater interrupted him.  
  
"My problem? It sounds like something the freak might have come up with." Cater bellowed.  
  
"Because he did. And _he_ has a name." he said angrily and hung up on him. It was good Cater wasn't making the rules either. With his duties done, he grabbed his coat and noticed the notebook was not the only thing Sherlock had got his hands on. His car keys were also not in his coat any more.

***********

"Why are we stealing Lestrade's car?" John asked sitting next to Sherlock who was driving through London's half-deserted streets.

Not as if he hadn't known the insane answer.

He was just hoping that hearing it from Sherlock would make the whole situation more plausible.  
  
"You can't tell a cabbie he should wait till you finish your break-in."  
  
It didn't.  
  
John watched as Sherlock and Mary smiled at each other through the rear mirror. About Sherlock's stupid joke. Which obviously hadn't been one. Somehow the situation made him question his own sanity. Why was he the only one thinking that using a DI's car to carry out some criminal actions was not a good idea?  
  
And a second later he tried his best to ignore that Sherlock had entered a one-way road in the wrong direction.  
  
"What? I haven't been around London for almost two year's. It seems my internal map is not completely up-to-date. And this used to be the fastest route." Sherlock protested.  
  
"I didn't say anything."  
  
"You were thinking."  
  
"Just drive. Let's hope we don't run into any traffic control."  
  
"Which would be bad, as I don't have my license with me."  
  
"At least he is keeping to the speed limit." Mary chuckled, trying to cheer John up whose frown was getting deeper by the minute.  
  
"Come on, I can't take my ID to a break-in. You are getting out of practice." he flashed John a teasing smile.  
  
John had meant to say something; that he wasn't the only one who had changed, but he didn't want to touch upon not yet completely healed wounds. So he remained silent, and looked outside into the dark, starless night.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ... and an actual one somewhere else. A gun is fired, shock blankets are used and a case gets solved.

Mary was sitting  at the wheel of the parked car and looked at the pre-paid phone in her hands. An old Nokia. No sent or received texts or calls. And she hoped it would stay that way throughout the next hours. Only one contact saved. No name, just a number he had said she should phone if anything should go wrong _._

How was she supposed to know, she had asked.

Use your brain, he had answered. She knew what he had meant. _Gun shot. Police sirens..._ She closed her eyes and stopped the list of items which started appearing in her head and took a steadying breath.

She also knew he had kept his descriptions deliberately vague. Because of John. No. John didn't mind running into danger. If _she_ knew he worked exceptionally well under stress, so did Sherlock.  Because of her? No, he was supposed to give her clear directions. She was a nurse or did he... No. He genuinely expected her to use her brain and to notice if something was going on. It wasn't rocket science after all.

For his own sake then. He was familiar with the dangers out there, and yet, he knew John would have never stayed behind.

She should have gone with them, a small, stupid voice kept repeating in her mind. But ironically, it was her training which kept her in the car. Rule number 1.  If you're not the one in charge of the plan, you stick to the plan unless told otherwise.

And she wasn't going to doubt Sherlock's abilities now. He had managed to defeat Moriarty's network and had come back alive. He had had obviously help, but then so had her partners and most of them hadn't got the chance to retire.

And there was no reason to worry about Sherlock's loyalty. He had jumped off a building to keep her fiancé save. If these weren't excellent credentials, then she didn't know what would have been.

She had seen what losing his best friend had done to John, she didn't want to find out what it would do to Sherlock.

She took another breath and focused on the mansion lying in the dark, and told herself everything was going to be all right.

***********

John watched the small circle of a torch dance over the narrow bookshelf, and somehow he still couldn't believe that it, that _this_ , was real. That Mary had been right and the top-notch security system in the front of the house was mostly show. That when they had come in through the terrace door the alarm hadn't blared to life. That they had reached the study on the first floor without getting noticed. And how somehow, in spite of all the things which had happened during the past two years, he still would have gone to hell and come back if that had been the way Sherlock would have wanted to take.  
  
"Lend me a hand," Sherlock hissed softly, leaving John wondering if he had imagined the sound. The lit pen light flying into his direction helped to clarify his doubts.  
  
John scanned the, small dark room, trying to figure out where he'd put an important address, one he'd liked to keep save from curious eyes. Naturally, it didn't take long till Sherlock prompted him again.  
  
"Could be slipped into any of these volumes. Or just a line in an address book - I hope he doesn't keep the address in his phone." Sherlock breath, sounding not too optimistic.  
  
"Drawers?" John asked, and the sound of his voice made both of them jump. Okay, he _was_ out of practice. But this was his first break-in in the past two years...

Sherlock gestured to go along and attended to the bookshelf again.

Silently, John stepped behind the desk which was standing in front of some room-high curtains, covering the door which led to the balcony. He opened the first drawer and was about to take out a pile of files lying next to a gun, but he got interrupted by the sound of steps in the hallway. Hastily, he closed it again and the next thing he knew was Sherlock tugging at his sleeve, trying to make them disappear behind the vast curtains. John wasn't fond of the idea of hiding this close to the desk and the gun he hadn't told Sherlock about, but as it was the only hiding place in the room, he wasn't going to argue.  
  
The moment he thought whoever was outside was gone for good, the door opened and someone turned on the lights. There were some heavy steps on the floor, coming nearer and nearer. To the desk. Rationally, he knew that, and yet one part of his mind wouldn't have been surprised if the unknown figure had pulled the thick fabric apart.  
  
Trapped between curtains and balcony, John could feel his own and practically each of Sherlock's heartbeats, as there was not all that much space to hide. Just as he started to believe the loud thumping of their hearts wasn't going to reveal their hiding place, he noticed Sherlock changing his position. His friend opened the curtains ever so slightly causing John's pulse to spike again.  
  
Prying outside, Sherlock's view was obscured by a man's broad shoulders. But no matter how much he tried to take a look, he couldn't see past the arms, the baldy head, and the back hunched over the desk. He almost considered taking a step to the right to get a better view, when the man shoved a phone to the side of the desk and the very second before the screen went dark again, Sherlock was able to get a glimpse of the address the man had been copying from the display.  
  
Soundlessly, he let the curtains fall back into place, allowing John to relax a little. A little. Because only Sherlock could have had the idea of going through John's coat pocket while the man of the house was sitting almost right next to them, a gun within reach. John understood why Sherlock wanted to send Mary the address as soon as possible, that maybe it had been minutes like these which had allowed him to come back to Baker Street. And that Sherlock couldn't reach his own phone without drawing some unnecessary attention to the curtains. But none of these thoughts helped.  
  
Determined to keep his sanity, John told himself to ignore the things he couldn't change and focused on their advantages instead. There were two of them, while the man was on his own. And even if he did notice something was off, he wouldn't be expecting being attacked by two people.  He'd go for the knees, John decided, trying to throw the guy off balance, hoping Sherlock- and just like that the lights went out.  
  
A minute later, Sherlock let John's phone fall back into John's pocket with a confident smile. And was gone.  
  
Catlike, Sherlock led the way through the dark house, down the open plan staircase, through the sitting room to the terrace door into the dark garden, with John following right behind.  
  
It had been a long time since John had been this grateful for a lung-full of fresh air. But they didn't stop until they were on the other side of the garden gate and in the car.  
  
"Good, you are back." Mary greeted them, sitting behind the wheel.  
  
"For a moment I thought-" John said, as he practically fell into the car's back seat.  
  
"Me too." Sherlock didn't allow John to finish the sentence. They didn't have time for this now, especially as that very moment they heard some screeching.  
  
"Garage door. Do you want to drive?" Mary offered Sherlock who was next to her.  
  
"Your driving licence?"  
  
"Here."  
  
"Wait till the road is clear, and then I'll navigate you to the address." He wasn't going to lose any more time just because of an uncooperative police officer.  
  
As the red back lights of the car in front of them vanished into the night, Mary turned the key. The engine hummed to life and they spent the next fifteen minutes in silence, which was only interrupted by Sherlock's short instructions.

**********

It wasn't difficult to spot the right house. On the left side. Old, untended brick building. Graffiti on the wall. Piles of leaves blocking the steps leading to the front door which clearly hadn't seen a brush of paint in the past five years. Her fingers itched, but she fought back the urge to do something.  
  
Slowly, the car came to a halt, and the next second Sherlock's hand was on the door handle.  
  
"Aren't we supposed to wait? Maybe someone will claim the money." John said.  
  
"They can do so without the letters being there."  
  
"What if he expects us to find out about the address?"  
  
"I'd be seriously disappointed if he didn't."  
  
"And you think he doesn't care about the money." Mary noted, mostly to herself. She was just as sure as he. Still, that didn't allow that nagging sensation of 'what if not' to go away.  
  
"Which makes it all the more interesting why he shows us his customer list."  
  
"What I was actually trying to say is that maybe this is a trap." John tried to steer the conversation back to the more important topic at hand.  
  
"For whom? Us? This is not Moriarty. Why should he hurt us after solving the case? We aren't posing any kind of danger to him. He's still in full control of the game."  
  
"You don't think there is a bomb?" She understood why John had asked that question, but she had to order one part of her mind not to judge him for it.  
  
"Don't be ridiculous, John. I'm not the first to touch the letterbox. Somebody delivered those letters to this address. I just want to take a look, confirming that I've been right and that the Yard won't miss some crucial evidence. And I need to do so before they policetape the whole area."  
  
He got out, crossed the street and moved swiftly to the weather beaten box taking out several envelopes. A moment later they saw his body tense and knew something was wrong.

***********

The first thing he noticed was there were too many letters. Seven. And Lewis' was still on its way. They couldn't have missed four victims, could they? No they didn't. Somebody had written dates on four of them. The dates of the murders. Coincidence? _'The universe is rarely so lazy'_ a voice echoed in his mind while he drew a few steps closer to the dim, flickering street light to get a better look, as he had  left the torch in the car.  
  
But the all too familiar sound of a gun's safety being released changed his plans.  
  
"What's the punishment for people who don't mind their own business?" a voice asked behind him. Young. Male. American. Standing about five yards away. In the dark, while his target was conveniently illuminated. He had to be an idiot to miss a shot like that. A bit not good.  
  
"The last time I looked it was not the death penalty." Calmly, he continued sorting the letters, separating the four envelopes from the others which would only contain some money.  
  
"You may want to take a look again."  
  
"Not necessary, because this _is_ my business." Sherlock opened the first one. Not only for emphasis.  
  
"You also got a letter?"  
  
And he was highly inexperienced to ask a question like that. Instead of inquiring if he was on his own. If there hadn't been a gun pointed at him, he would have almost enjoyed the conversation. Then again, if he had really wanted to kill him, he would have done so by now.  
  
"No. But every pound paid to a hit man is my business." He took a glimpse of its content, and closed the envelope again.  
  
"You are a cop?" He could hear the American laughing about his own joke. "Now tell me a reason why I shouldn't shoot you."  
  
Oh, this was going to be rather tricky. If his argument was too good, he wouldn't be able to keep any of the letters without raising suspicion. However, if it was not good enough he'd end up dead. Time. He needed time. Why hadn't the idiot showed up 10 minutes later? Even 10 seconds would have helped.  
  
"Do you know what happens if you shoot me? My colleagues will start to investigate. They'll take my death personally and then you'd wish there was something like a death penalty in this country."

Technically, it hadn't been even a lie. He'd have to get rid of this new habit, he thought,  it hadn't been part of the old Sherlock Holmes. Carefully, he folded the four letters. Where was John? He was running out of topics to talk about. Small talk had never been his strong forte.  
  
"You aren't wearing a uniform."  
  
He noted satisfyingly the voice behind him sounded less sure of himself than half a minute ago, while he made the papers vanish in the sleeve of his coat.  
  
"Detective Inspectors don't have a uniform." He hoped John didn't have his gun with him. He wasn't looking forward to explaining Lestrade why a serial killer threatening him had conveniently died again.  
  
"You know what?" Sherlock added, looking at the three remaining envelopes in his hands. "Both of us are sensible people. Killing me would come with several problems. There are people living around here. As soon as they'd hear the shot, they'd call the police. You wouldn't get far. Let's compromise. You don't shoot me and I'm willing to forget about the whole incident."  
  
"Sorry, I'm not leaving without the money."  
  
He would have loved to tell the idiot he was trying to save his life; that even though he was unarmed and held at gunpoint he wasn't the one in real danger here.  
  
"Okay. You can have the letters. I'm not that picky. I'll put them back into the letterbox and I'll go down the street the way I came from. Just do yourself a favour and don't sh-"  
  
The very moment a shot ripped through the air.

*************

It took him a second to realise he wasn't shot. At least, there was no pain.

How long would it take for the shock to wear off? If there was any.

He took another breath, but nothing hurt.

He had missed, was his first thought.

John hadn't.

His second.

*************

The lights tinted the street blue, which was buzzing with people in several uniforms. Just as Sherlock turned down the third shock blanket, trying and failing to read the newspaper article, which had been in the first envelope, due to an overly eager paramedic interrupting him for the he-didn’t-know-what-th time, he spotted Lestrade ducking under the tape.  
  
"What did you take this long?" he greeted the DI.  
  
"You know damn well."  
  
"Oh."

He took the car key from his pocket, and dropped it into Lestrade's hand.  
  
"John and Mary are talking to some officers." Sherlock murmured looking at the page in his hand.  
  
Naturally,  they had been with him, Lestrade thought, but he didn't have the chance to comment on it.  
  
"Not any more." Mary's voice interrupted Sherlock once more.  
  
"And they want to have a word with you too." John added.  
  
"Busy. They can ask me tomorrow." he said, still trying to make sense of the information in front of him.  
  
"Erm, he can't leave until I-"  
  
"Could you shut up for a moment?" Sherlock snapped at the paramedic.  
  
"He's just trying to do his job." John did his best to conciliate.  
  
"Well, so am I."  he said focusing on the article again.  
  
However, by then the medic had had enough and snatched the papers out of Sherlock's hands. Surprised, he looked up, right into the light of some small medical pen light.  
  
“Pupils responsive.” he said while wrapping a blood pressure monitor around Sherlock's wrist and pressed the button in one motion.

"John, tell him I'm fine." Sherlock grumbled. If he hadn't been fine John would have made a fuss way before the ambulance had appeared, and he would have never wandered off to give his statement, leaving him at the mercy of the second idiot he had to deal with on that very young day. But something told him bringing these facts to the paramedic's attention wasn't going to help.

"If you had been cooperative this could have been over in less than five minutes." John pointed out.

"I _was_ cooperative."

"Not with him. There is no point in telling him you're fine. He has to see for himself." John said, just as the monitor beeped.

"Pulse and blood pressure are a bit elevated," the medic mumbled reading the figures. "But given that someone fired-"

"Of course it's elevated. The way you're treating that crucial evidence in a quadruple homicide would  give any person with half a brain a heart attack."

For a second the paramedic stared at him as if one of them had lost their sanity.

"And now Sir, I'd like you to answer some questions."

"I didn't hit my head." Sherlock objected.

"Convince me." the paramedic sighed forgetting for a moment that he ought to be polite. "Sir, state your name, location, and the name of our current Prime Minister."  
  
This was ridiculous, but the warning glance John shot him didn't leave him with another option.

"Sherlock Holmes. Brixton. And... not Mycroft."

John started to chuckle, and it was impossible not to join in.  
  
"That's not-" the medic said confused but this time it was John who cut him off.  
  
“He doesn’t know that on a good day." John said catching his breath.

Who said this wasn't a good day? Sherlock thought and gave his friend an amused look, which almost cracked John up again.

"Sorry, nerves." John apologised to the young man. "And you, just behave for a minute... What chemical element has 48 protons?”  
  
But instead of continuing the charade Sherlock turned to the man in uniform.

“Your girlfriend walked recently out on you. Probably because she found out about your drug habit. And if I were you I wouldn't steal these from the ambulance." he said and took a bottle of pills out of the lad's pockets. "Sooner or later someone is bound to notice they keep vanishing on your shift and you'll lose your job. Actually, do what you want. Just stop wasting my time. John, really? You know I'm fine. It's Cadmium. But you wouldn't have known the answer, which undermines  the point of the whole procedure."  
  
John was about to protest but Sherlock cut him off.  
  
"Okay. You did look it up. But that question doesn't meet the required criteria as that information doesn't _change_. The next time, just ask for your current password. Or probably not. That could end up being embarrassing... Can we go now? There is still a serial killer on the loose."  
  
He grabbed the papers and left a gaping paramedic standing in front of the ambulance.  
  
"How did you know?" John asked while he tried to keep up with Sherlock's long strides.

He was obviously not referring to the password.  
  
"The more impatient he got the more often he touched his right pocket. Works in an ambulance and doesn't smell of cigarettes, no-"  
  
"And you are asking me to ignore that?" Lestrade had more pressing matters on mind.  
  
"Not your division. Unlike these letters." he stopped and handed them to Lestrade.  
  
"You think the guy we arrested is not the killer?" the DI asked, but not bothering to wait for a response, he found the one which had been opened and took out a copy of a cut out newspaper article.  
  
In 2010 an Eric Brown died after he got hit by a car. The driver had been high. On the backside someone had written a few sentences.

  
  
 _'Danny Casile had too good lawyers to get charged. If you look hard enough everyone deserves to die._  
 _With kind regards,_  
 _the Good Samaritan.'_

"I thought Danny Casile doesn't show up in the records." John said who had been reading next to Lestrade.  
  
"He doesn't."  
  
"The article seems to be real."  Mary said.  
  
"Well, his parents are rich. There's a lot money can buy." Lestrade said.  
  
He opened the other letters.  
  
In 2008 a building collapsed in Surrey. A gas leak causing a small explosion. 5 people died. And 'the Good Samaritan' was making Jeffrey Wilkers' company responsible for some mistakes in the building's construction which had led to the accident, as well as a Gina Harold, now Wilkers, for giving them a building permit in the first place.  
  
Five people working in the management of some Japanese company had committed suicide after they lost a small fortune on the stock market in 2012. According to their serial killer it had been Mrs Hart's fault who was involved in bribery and several other criminal activities which she had tried to cover up, and one of her business partners' had to take the fall.  
  
"Someone is taking revenge." Mary murmured, as Lestrade ripped the last one open.  
  
2012\. 28 people found dead in a container. Human trafficking. And Senior and Junior Lewis had been questioned but never charged.  
  
"Revenge for whom?" John asked.  
  
Sherlock pointed at the last sentence. _'If you look hard enough, everyone deserves to die.'_  
  
"It seems someone at the Yard wasn't paying enough attention," Sherlock explained. "A serial killer doing the Yard a favour, telling you someone is not doing their job properly. A case in a case. It's Christmas." He rubbed his hands enthusiastically.  
  
"Don't forget he killed four people in four days." Lestrade pointed out.  
  
"Oh..." And there it was again, the familiar gleam in his eyes. "He is trying to be clever...I love those."  
  
"What am I missing now, Sherlock?" Lestrade asked.  
  
"None of them were your cases?"  
  
"What?"  
  
"The newspaper articles."  
  
"No. Why?"  
  
"Is it possible to say who was working on them? No, wait. Is anyone at the Yard who was a DI in Surrey?"  
  
The look in Lestrade's eyes was enough to confirm his question. He glanced at the watch. 3:32AM.  
  
"If you're fast you might save a life and catch our good Samaritan in the act."  
  
The next second, Lestrade was on the phone.  
  
When he finished the call five minutes later, he was a bit surprised by them still being there.  
  
"You've been right. Parker worked on at least two of them. They are closing off..." But he stopped because it didn't really matter. "Listen. There is nothing for you to do. Sherlock, even if we were late, I couldn't allow you to take as much as a glimpse at Parker's house."  
  
"But-"  
  
"I'm sorry. I can't. We'll catch him. Or if we screw up, you'll be among the first ones to get a file. I promise."  
  
"Because that worked so well last time." Sherlock teased him. But he could see the point. Getting Lestrade fired wasn't going to help anyone.  
  
"Go home. Sleep. You look like hell."  
  
"I can only return the compliment."  
  
"I guess being woken up at 2 AM is not doing me any favours."  Lestrade said with a sympathetic smile and began heading into the direction of his car.  
  
"All right. The next time, I'll just take the keys and your notebook."  
  
"Don't you dare. Oh, and Sherlock," he turned around again. "Thanks for... you know, the usual. Showing up and solving the case. Well done."  
  
"You're welcome." And that was as polite as the posh git would get, he thought hurrying down the street.  
  
"So, that's what you do?" Mary asked as they watched Lestrade go.  
  
"That's what we do." John confirmed.  
  
"Dinner?" Sherlock suggested.  
  
"That Chinese at Baker Street still closes at two."  
  
"I know a good Thai place which opens in about fifteen minutes."  
  
John threw him a sceptical look.  
  
"Have I ever disappointed you?"  
  
"More often than I care to count." John said with a small laugh. But he still let Mary take his hand and they followed Sherlock who led the way.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The case gets wrapped up and the boys have a chat about French waiters, moustaches and Mary.

The light of the setting sun falling through a crack between the drawn curtains gave the skull on the mantelpiece a golden hue, and once again John asked himself if it was real. He wouldn't have put stealing one from wherever one could get hold of skulls these days past Sherlock. But he had never cared enough to take a look at it and find out.  
  
Carefully, he folded the bag he had used to leave some fresh clothes in his old room - whom was he kidding? It had been a bad excuse to check on Sherlock, who was sprawled out on the sofa, getting some much needed rest. It wasn't the first time he'd sleep for 14 hours straight, John reminded himself. And he had had two cases back to back. But the thought didn't help to put him at ease. He was a doctor and Sherlock's friend; he should have known better than watching him doing these things to himself. However, there was nothing he could have done about it now.  
  
Taking a step towards the door, his knee cracked, protesting against the movement. Actually, he wouldn't have noticed if the relaxed breathing from before hadn't suddenly stopped. Surprised, John turned around, remembering that once he had hovered the kitchen and the sitting room because of an experiment gone right (or wrong?) while Sherlock had slept off one of his post-case crashes on the sofa, and hadn't done as much as stir.  
  
He waited several seconds, but the silence persisted.  
  
"You know, that's not how you sleep." he said and didn't get a response. "That's not even how I sleep." John added slightly amused.  
  
"Have you ever heard yourself sleeping?" Sherlock asked and sat up.  
  
"No, but-"  
  
"There is a reason why I checked for a pulse when you fell asleep for the first time on this sofa."  
  
He wasn't going to discuss how the most observant person walking the earth thought John would pose an excellent corpse whenever he wasn't awake. Or why the only person who once could have slept through doomsday, had woken up because one of John's joints had decided it wasn't twenty any more. Or that he had a good idea of what had caused the difference.  
  
"They caught him." John finally broke the silence which had been only drawing attention to all the things they wouldn't talk about.  
  
"Did Lestrade tell you?" Sherlock asked and John could pick up a trace of irritation in his voice.  
  
"No. The news. They caught a serial killer and arrested a Superintendent suspecting him of being involved in some bribery. They are calling it Scotland Yard's biggest success in years. No word of you, though."  
  
"As you pointed out, I'm not doing it for the praise. Not as if this time I'd deserve any." he sighed and let himself fall back on the cushion.  
  
Was he trying to manipulate him into saying something nice?  
  
"You saved a life." he tried it with the obvious while Sherlock was staring at the ceiling.  
  
"Yes, the life of a not very nice man, as you'd say. I screwed up. I should have noticed the far too clean crime scenes, and that the perfume wasn't in Walters' room when we were there. It was obvious, really."

If so, he'd use less perfect arguments.  
  
"Sherl-"  
  
"Hart's perfume-" Or let him actually say something. "-was already evaporated when we talked to her, or maybe she wasn't wearing it that day, but her reaction should have been enough for me to make the connection."  
  
"That's-"  
  
"And from there, it wouldn't have been a big leap to that address... We could have saved one of the victims."  
  
"Yes, Lewis. Another not very nice man. It wasn't your fault. You didn't make a mistake."  
  
"John, with all due respect, I don't think you're in a position to -" but John cut him off before he could have given him a backhanded, or not backhanded insult. He didn't want to lose his temper just then.  
  
"No. Listen. You didn't notice the perfume because you broke your own rules. There is a reason why you don't take two cases at a time."  
  
"It shouldn't-"  
  
"But it _did_ matter. And you knew it would which was why you kept turning Lestrade down. You didn't stick to your own principles by paying Lestrade a favour and it didn't work out as you would have anticipated."  
  
"You think I was too nice?" Sherlock lifted his head to look at John, trying to figure out if he was being serious.  
  
"Call it whatever you want." John said with a small, compassionate smile. He wasn't going to destroy the shaky frame of his argument because of a minor flaw. He decided to change the topic before Sherlock would point out any serious ones "What I don't understand is how he managed to pull this off. He had to know about these things and get hired by these people."  
  
"You know his answer. If you look hard enough, everyone deserves to die."  
  
For a second John thought of all the things he had done wrong, everything which would give someone a reason, or maybe even the right, to kill him. He couldn't help but admit 'the good Samaritan' had a point.  
  
"I hope you know that's not true." John said, even though it felt like a lie.  
  
"I think the more rational explanation is that not anyone hires a killer to get rid of a problem, but people who are used to drastic- well - illegal solutions. It took them some time and certain actions to get there. And this was about Parker. He wanted to get at him, and he found a fascinating way to do so."  
  
The next moment the door bell went off.  
  
"Single ring, maximum pressure, but too long to be a client. Lestrade. In a few seconds he'll try to make sure he did catch my attention." He sounded almost bored.  
  
"Don't you want to... go and answer it?" John suggested, mostly because he couldn't remember if he had seen him ever carrying out that action. Sherlock Holmes opening the front door? That's where his imagination failed him.  
  
"Why should I if you can do that just fine?"  
  
As predicted, the bell rang again, and he figured it would be too much effort to convince Sherlock of the opposite and hurried downstairs.  
  
"Oh, hello John. I didn't expect you, or actually anyone to open the door..." Lestrade said surprised, mobile in hand.  
  
"You were about to phone him?" John asked lifting the right corner of his mouth.  
  
"Well, Mrs Hudson seems to be out... And you know what _he_ can be like." he explained as he followed John up the seventeen steps.  
  
"You're already done questioning them?" Sherlock asked when they entered the room.  
  
"Not every one of them is being cooperative but we have enough evidence to charge them. I know you wouldn't believe it, but there are a few things we do get done without you." Lestrade said and sat down in the client's chair.  
  
"We were just wondering how all of them ended up hiring a killer." John said.  
  
"Their motives? Casile felt insulted by Fouler having an affair, and he was rich, proud and foolish enough to let his wish of wanting her dead come true. Hart never got along with her mother. According to her the only reason Walters and Cooper had a relationship was because she wanted to embarrass her. So she hired a killer. Actually, I'm not sure if she's completely sane... The Wilkers had a marriage contract. And she didn't want to leave him empty handed. And Lewis hasn't said a word yet, but it seems he and Senior Lewis were business partners and they had a difference of opinion on some matter."  
  
"The right people just happened to ask for a hit man?" John asked doubtfully.  
  
"Don't be stupid," Sherlock huffed. "Maybe one of them did and he realised his opportunity and made the other ones an offer they couldn't resist. As I said. They are used to desperate solutions."  
  
"But why did he do the whole thing? Why didn't he just kill Parker?" John asked.  
  
"He didn't only want Parker dead, but also his reputation." Lestrade realised too late what he had just said. "I mean..." he started without being sure what else he could have meant.  
  
"It's not a touchy topic." Sherlock tried not to be annoyed by the concern in Lestrade's eyes. That hadn't been what had hurt about Moriarty's plan.  
  
"If he had only killed Parker, Parker would have died as the good guy, and he wanted to show Parker wasn't a saint. But why did he bother with him?" Sherlock picked up the conversation again as nobody else seemed to be able to say a word. "An elaborate plan like this- he must have a personal reason to loathe him."  
  
"He made Parker responsible for the death of his brother... Sherlock, have you ever heard about the Phantom?"  
  
"Yes, one of those seemingly uncatchable serial killers. But you never got those cases. I've never been to any of his crime scenes." he said as if they had been talking about some tourist attraction. "Apparently, not until now."  
  
"I never got them because Parker did. The Phantom never left any evidence, hence the name, which made it difficult to catch him."  
  
"That's not a reliable tell-tale-sign. And why didn't you tell me this two days ago?"  
  
"Because the perfume and the poison didn't fit his usually quite bloody MO. And the victims weren't tied up in some business of the Russian mafia... About four months ago one of Parker's operations went wrong. A suspect got shot. Patrick Evans, a small fish in the sea. The only reason hell didn't break loose was that Parker knew the right people."  
  
"And the Phantom tried to take revenge for Evans and we caught him." John finished the story.  
  
"That's why he thinks everyone deserves to die." Sherlock murmured staring into empty space again.  
  
"What?" Lestrade asked, revealing that this time John wasn't the only confused person in the room. Why was it that Sherlock made him usually believe he had missed a whole part of the conversation?  
  
"He didn't try to defend Evans." Sherlock said and got up and began walking up and down, the dressing gown swirling behind him. "He knew Evans hadn't been a good man. Not by people's standards. But if Evans deserved to die, then so did Parker, who seems to have more than enough flaws. Which is why he tried to kill him, but not without drawing some attention to his mistakes. His note is not that of someone taking revenge. It's someone's who is running amok.  But there is method to his madness. He knew he couldn't kill everyone. That's why he chose his clients carefully."  
  
"How did he know whom to choose?" John interrupted Sherlock.  
  
"Our database." Lestrade confessed.  
  
"I thought-"  
  
"Yeah. Me too... When they checked Parker's cases, they noticed someone had hacked the system and eliminated Parker's files from the search query. Our suspects were never charged, and without Parker's files we couldn't find any data about them."  
  
"Nice."  
  
John threw him a warning glance.  
  
"By the way, Parker is annoyed that it was you of all people who saved his life and caught the Phantom."  
  
"I take Parker's not a fan of me."  
  
"He knows?" John asked.  
  
"Sherlock Holmes is back and Scotland Yard just solved its biggest case in years? He's not that stupid..." Lestrade sighed and added more seriously "But that's not why I'm here..."  
  
The pause which followed sounded almost threatening.  
  
"They didn't suspend you, did they?"  
  
Lestrade seemed to be almost touched by the trace of concern hidden among all the annoyance in Sherlock's voice.  
  
"No. Especially once I'm done explaining how you could solve it after having been only to one of the crime scenes. You know, you really make us look like idiots..."  
  
"Not by choice."  
  
"Oh, shut up before you make matters worse..." Lestrade teased him.  
  
After a seemingly never ending pause, he took a deep breath and said: "Do you know who was a fan of yours?"  
  
"Depends on your definition of fan, I suppose."  
  
"The Phantom. Or George Evans."  
  
"Oh, that's why he came up with the perfume. He did want to catch my attention... Hold on. Was?"  
  
"He committed suicide two hours ago."  
  
"Are you sure it was suicide?"  
  
Lestrade nodded. "Took two pills. Potassium cyanide..."  
  
"If you look hard enough, everyone deserves to die. He didn't think he was an exception to the rule."  
  
"He was actually pleased with you solving it," Lestrade continued. "Although, he would have preferred to be able to kill Parker and finish his literally bloody masterpiece... The reason why I'm telling you this is that he left a note. And I think it's meant for you."

With that he produced an evidence bag out of his coat pocket, which contained a piece of paper. He handed it to Sherlock, eyes fixed on him, trying to read his reaction.  
  
"That's... not exactly helpful. Of all the fast acting poisons available, he shouldn't have taken _cyanide."_  
  
Sherlock gave the plastic bag to John and occupied his chair.  
  
_'Beware of M'_ John read. There was a letter started after the M but it hadn't been finished.  
  
"That could be all sort of things." he said.  
  
"An 'a' or an 'o' are the most likely options..." Sherlock elaborated.  
  
"M. O. Could be Moriarty." Lestrade added and John suddenly understood what had made him feel uncomfortable.  
  
"Dead." John said looking at the note again, as Sherlock didn't even bothered to comment Lestrade's theory.  
  
"Sure? Only because you believe someone to be dead they don't need to stay dead. Learnt that the hard way."  
  
"They tend to stay dead if Mycroft wants them to." Sherlock said hands folded under his chin as if in prayer. Thinking.  
  
"Do you know any criminals starting with M?" John asked and gave the note back to Lestrade.  
  
"There are days I think all of them do..." Sherlock murmured.  
  
"George Evans didn't." Lestrade pointed out just as Sherlock snapped back to reality.  
  
"If our mysterious 'M' is such a threat, sooner or later we'll come across him. Or her."  
  
"I just wanted you to know," Lestrade said and got up. "I still have some explaining to do... Oh, and we're waiting for your statement."  
  
"The Phantom thought that American worthy of a letter. Don't tell me you need me to charge him."  
  
"I told Carter the same. But it would make things easier..."    
  
"I always do." Sherlock huffed.  
  
"No, you don't." he said and opened the door to let himself out.  
  
"John, give my regards to Mary. And Sherlock, the next time, try not to get yourself shot."  
  
"Too much paper work?"  
  
"Definitely too much paper work..." he sighed with a half-smile and closed the door.  
  
They listened as his steps got fainter and disappeared.  
  
"Does he know?" John asked Sherlock who was deducing the air in front of him once more.  
  
"About Moriarty? Only that he's dead."  
  
"You haven't told him about...?"  
  
Sherlock waited several seconds but the words never came; so he did what John expected him to and read his friend's silence.  
  
"No. There is no point."  
  
"In telling him you saved his life?"  
  
"There is no good way of breaking the news."  
  
"Oh, really?" The softness in John's voice made Sherlock finally look at his friend sitting opposite him. He couldn't just ignore the wry smile on John's face, but at least there was nothing which told him he would have been still angry.  
  
"By the way, the day I faked my death there were some trained killers aiming at you. But no worries, they were taken care of." Sherlock mockingly recited the words, and against his hopes he earned another smile from John.  
  
"You think that wouldn't work but disguising yourself as a waiter in a restaurant..."  
  
But the world's only consulting detective remained silent.  
  
"And Mrs Hudson?"  
  
"It would only upset them, John."  
  
"As if you'd care."  
  
"I do."  
  
"Yet you told me."

"I thought you'd like to understand."  
  
"And it's okay if _they_ don't?"  
  
"I don't want their sympathies."  
  
Only yours. He hadn't said it, but he knew that's what John had heard nonetheless.

"John, don't jump to conclusions." _Word choice_. "I didn't expect you to be actually angry with me, but I also didn't expect you to..."

"What?"

"Care."

"So, you..."

"I thought you'd insist on the obligatory hug - or not- and that would have been it. I thought you'd laugh about my idea of the disguised waiter with the thick French accent ... And the drawn-on moustache. My original plan was to tell you I'd only get rid of mine if you got rid of yours."

For a few seconds they were watching each other and Sherlock hoped he hadn't crossed an invisible line again. But at last John's features softened and he shook his head.

"I have to admit, in retrospect, after having slept many nights over it, and with taking all your apologies into account, it was funny. A bit."

 However, before Sherlock could have claimed his victory, John huffed a small laugh, raised his index finger and said, adopting the tone of a benevolent school teacher:

"Sherlock. Don't. You're forgetting you also ruined my proposal." 

"Well, she did say yes."

"That's not the poi-"

"It _really_ is... ' he said with a grin and soon John joined in. 

For a moment they were lost in their own thoughts.

"Tell me about Mary." Sherlock broke the silence at last.

"Why? You've met her."

"I'm aware."

"And I wouldn't be surprised if you knew things about her I don't."

"Probably, I do."

"So why should I tell you something you already know?"

"I see she votes liberal democrat. That she likes cats-"

"We don't have a cat."

"Maybe you'd like to change that... But I don't know the story of why you trust her. How she has become part of your life. I can read her but I can't see her with your eyes."

"And you want to?"

"I just want to understand..."

"What? Love?"

"For the lack of a better word..."

And there it was again. John's sime which made him feel stupid and brilliant at the same time.

"I love her because she's-"

"Perfect. I know. Was hoping for a bit more than that. I'm interested into the facts, and please, don't romanticise them."

"I never-"

"Yes, you do. You always do. Especially when you're in love."

For a moment he thought John was going to protest. But slowly, the frown vanished, and John's eyes shifted their focus. They hadn't moved, but instead of studying him, they were looking through him. Oh, he knew that expression.

"Right," John finally said. " How about this: I wasn't hoping for one of your bizarre texts while being on a date with her."

He was about to point out what that said about John, or John's dates, but he stayed silent. He genuinely wanted him to continue.

"She loves me. The way I am. No conditions attached. She thinks my faults don't matter."

Yes, the basic definition of 'love'.

"She doesn't want to change me or my life. And yet she does anyway. Making it and me better without really trying. A bit like you, only that she doesn't use the kitchen or me for Chemical experiments. Or manipulates me into saying _'I forgive you.'_ "

And the half-smile had its come back.

"Not yet."

"Are you implying you were nice to me?" John asked teasingly.

"I didn't do any experiments-  any dangerous ones, for one or two weeks." He didn't want to mention any of the actual indicators. It would have looked as if he was trying too hard and he wasn't that desperate. 

"You called me an idiot on the second day we met."

"Lestrade didn't last two minutes. And you're supposed to talk about Mary. Not me."

Hello silence my old friend.

"She likes you." John added after another pause.

"You couldn't have known that."

But John did. Sometimes Sherlock wished he couldn't just read most of his friend's thoughts like an open book. And every time he did he felt as if he ought to say sorry for having saved him. Or for having come into his life all those years ago. What was worse, those bits of information always ended up in some corner of his mind palace. Where they would be analysed. Where they would have to reveal their meaning.

Of course, even after his death he wouldn't have stayed in a relationship where John's love interest wouldn't have accepted his friend. That he was dead was just a minor detail. As much as he hated to admit it, it had been him who had usually ended John's liaisons. Involuntarily. With his mere existence, or rather with the fact that people tended to react in a certain way to his existence. Or to John reacting to his existence. And against his expectations, after his death that hadn't just stopped. People had kept reacting to John's dead friend. So naturally John had ended up marrying the only person on this planet who would have been fine with their friendship. No matter if he had come back or not.

Because John hadn't done the obvious and simply moved on.

As much as he wanted to say sorry, he didn't. Because John wouldn't have understood. He barely understood himself and he was supposed to be a genius.

So he forced his mind to listen to John's words and to remember them, no matter if they would end up hurting him or not. Mary was making John happy and if there was one thing Moriarty had taught him then that, if the odds were going to be in his favour, and he'd end up not having to live in a world without John, she'll be there for him. And that was more he could have ever asked for.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Who is M? Magnussen? Mary Morstan? Moriarty? Moran? Someone else? What do they have in common with the Russian mafia?
> 
> For the record: when we get a glimpse of the (imaginary) files on Mary in Magnusen's vaults, one word reads AGRA. In Cyrillic letters. Therefore, we are able to link her to Russia. But the mere fact that Magnussen has access to that information tells me her enemies must be good friends of the blackmailing media mogul, otherwise, he wouldn't know this much about Mary's past. Which is why I think the Phantom wanted to warn Sherlock of Magnussen. But you don't need to agree with me. After all, I am not giving enough information to make things sure. Deliberately so. 
> 
> I know, this scene really lacks some tea. I practically could read John's thought telling me passive-aggressively that some tea would be rather lovely _right now_. But there just wasn't a good occasion for him to leave the sitting room to get his very British cravings fixed. (And I didn't want to go through the fuss of Mrs Not-Your-Housekeeper-Hudson making some. I don't believe it's wise to have characters in a scene where they aren't given the opportunity to do much. Talking about it, I'm sorry for not making use of brilliant Hudders.) 
> 
> When you're shooting a scene set in the UK you can just make some cups with perfectly brewed tea magically appear and nobody will question where they have come from. But you can't do the same in a book without drawing some unnecessary attention to what is really going on at 221B, Downton Abbey or whatever other shows you're watching (which is the actual reason why HP ended up being a book about magic). And I didn't want to add 'magical realism' to the tags only because I'm describing a very realistic phenomenon which defies any kind of scientific explanation.
> 
> So, this is me apologising to my readers (and to John) that Chapter 8 sadly does not feature any tea.
> 
> And yes. I know I'm misquoting Simon and Garfunkel. And maybe Hamlet. It's been a while. And why should Sherlock get them right?
> 
> I think I also have to apologise to Mary. Who doesn't get a lot to do in this episode. A well as Mrs Hudson, Sally, Molly and Mycroft. They are all dear to me. Maybe I'll be able to do them in my next fic justice... We'll see. This is one of the first (proper) things I've ever written. So there is that.
> 
> Thanks for reading. Any kind of feedback is immensely appreciated.


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